


In Spite of Everything, the Stars

by mushroomtale, Polomonkey



Series: In Spite of Everything, the Stars [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Angst and Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, Romance, Sexual Content, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-10
Updated: 2015-09-10
Packaged: 2018-04-17 01:30:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 82,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4647243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mushroomtale/pseuds/mushroomtale, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polomonkey/pseuds/Polomonkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>London. 2015. The government is set to vote on ending the microchipping of magic users, and Arthur Pendragon has been tasked with kidnapping prominent Magical activist Merlin Emrys to influence the outcome.</p><p>Locked away in a house on the North York Moors, tensions rise and confrontation ensues as Arthur is forced to re-evaluate everything he’s been taught about magic, and Merlin finds himself in a struggle for his life. And the fact that they’re falling for each other doesn’t help…</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Firstly a huge huge thanks to the ACBB mods for all their hard work! This was my first time with this or any Merlin fest, and it was a brilliant experience.
> 
> Secondly thank you to my absolutely wonderful beta pendragonns [(ambrosius)](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ambrosius) who stepped in late in the game and did a genuinely fantastic job on my mixed up prose - I am so grateful! Also thanks to everyone in Chatzy who cheered me on and let me flail, and especially [the5leggedcricket](http://archiveofourown.org/users/the5leggedCricket) for some vital early plot help!
> 
> Last but certainly not least, to the amazing Mushroomtale. I literally could not believe my luck when you agreed to collab with me on this, it was like an absolute dream come true. You have been my favourite Merlin artist for so long and you were the best partner I could have asked for. Not only have you produced the most stunning and beautiful artwork, you also gave me so much indispensable plot advice and made so many great suggestions for the story (seriously, if you like something in this fic, Mushroom probably came up with it!). It was a true collaboration in every sense of the word and I really really hope it isn't our last! Thank you for being so lovely in every way <333
> 
> Without further ado, the fic! The tags contain the main warnings but I have added individual chapter warnings where appropriate. The poem the title comes from is [here](http://thepolomonkey.tumblr.com/post/128724071772/in-spite-of-everything-the-stars). I really hope you enjoy it :)

  
  
  
  


 

When Merlin is ten years old, his father leaves. 

He remembers his early childhood as happy, mostly. They live in a small house on the outskirts of town, the best feature of which is a leafy, overgrown garden that dominates most of Merlin’s free time. His dad helps him build a little treehouse in the sturdy oak at the bottom of the garden, and Merlin spends much of his time conducting solemn business in it with his teddies and his toy soldiers. He’s usually up there alone. While there are other children in the neighbourhood, they don’t seem to want to play with him. His mum tells him there’ll be plenty of time to make friends when he starts going to school. 

But before he can start school, he has to go to registration. His parents have explained registration to him but he doesn’t really understand it. All Merlin knows is that the amount of magic he has will be tested somehow. His mum reassures him that the test isn’t painful, save a tiny little injection, but that doesn’t explain why there’s so much worry in her eyes whenever the subject comes up. 

Then one night his parents sit him down for a chat. 

“Merlin, you remember when we talked about registration. Remember how I told you they’ll be checking your magic levels and giving you a microchip like Daddy has?”

“Yeah,” Merlin says, fiddling with one of the wooden dragons his dad regularly carves for him. He wonders if anyone at his new school will like dragons. Maybe he can invite some of the kids round to see his whole collection…

“Merlin! Are you listening?”

His mum looks anxious and he feels bad so he nods and sits up straight. There’s a short silence and then his dad leans forward.

“Son, your powers are very special. They’re different from everyone else’s.”

His dad pauses, weighing his words. 

“Some people find it hard to understand when things are different. So to make it easier for them, I’m going to teach you a spell that makes your powers look a bit more like other people’s.”

Merlin squints up at him.

“Isn’t that lying?”

His mum had told him off for lying the week before, when he broke a bowl and tried to blame it on the cat.

It’s his mum who answers now.

“It’s not lying Merlin, it’s just trying to protect people’s feelings. Which is a nice thing to do.”

She smiles at him and he feels reassured. 

“I’m going to practice the spell with you,” his dad tells him. “It won’t work for very long; you’ll have to do it just before you go in for your appointment. So we need to go over it a few times.”

A few times turns out to be an underestimate. A whole month before his registration date, his father starts teaching him the spell; taking him down to the bottom of the garden in the evenings and drilling it into him. It’s not like the times his father’s taught him magic before; the two of them joking around, laughing when Merlin mispronounces a word or mixes the sequence up. There’s a sense of urgency that he’s never felt before–his father’s face is serious, grim. When Merlin gets it wrong, Balinor doesn’t laugh. He makes Merlin do it again, and again, and again. 

They only do it for half an hour a day usually, but the night before registration his father makes him practice for so long he’s nearly crying in frustration by the end. He gets it, he can do it, why do they have to keep going over it? When he hears his mum’s voice calling him for dinner, he jumps up eagerly but his father grabs his arm.

“One more time, Merlin.”

“No!” he yells, because he’s tired and hungry and they’ve been doing this all day and he doesn’t even understand why.

Suddenly Balinor is on his feet, looming over him, gripping his arms in an iron hold.

“Do you think this is a game?” He shouts. “Do you know what they’ll do to you if they find out what you’re capable of?”

Merlin whimpers, terrified. His father’s never once shouted at him before, never once laid a hand on him.

“They’ll take you away! Lock you up in a lab and experiment on you! We’d never be able to see you again!” 

Merlin bursts into tears, loud wailing sobs that summon his mother from the kitchen and down to the bottom of the garden.

“Balinor!”

His father jolts at the sound of her voice, as if snapping out of a trance. He looks down at Merlin and releases his grip like he’s been burned, just in time for his mother to draw level with them and snatch him up in her arms.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” She hisses at her husband, while Merlin clings to her neck and weeps.

He doesn’t hear what Balinor replies, but when his mother marches back to the house he can see his dad over her shoulder. He’s staring at his hands like he can’t believe what he’s done.

Inside the kitchen, his mother sits him on her lap and spoon feeds him his dinner, using a napkin to dab at the tears still dripping down his face. Merlin knows he’s too old to be fed like this really, but he’s scared and sad and he wants his mum.

“He… said… they’d… t-take me away,” he chokes out at one point and his mother shushes him.

“No-one’s going to take you away, I promise. I wouldn’t let them.”

Despite her reassurances, Merlin can’t get his father’s words out of his head. He’s not sure what ‘experiment’ means, but it sounds scary and horrible and he doesn’t want anyone to do it to him.

He understands what being locked up is though, and that’s awful enough to contemplate. He cries all the way through the meal, even when Hunith lets him have two helpings of chocolate mousse for pudding.

They’ve just finished eating, and Hunith is rocking him back and forth in her arms, when Balinor comes in. Merlin tenses up, burrowing further into his mother’s embrace.

His father comes and sits on a chair a little distance away from them.

“Son,” he says, and his voice cracks on that one word. “I am so, so, sorry.”

Merlin can’t quite meet his father’s eyes.

“I didn’t mean to shout and I certainly didn’t mean to grab you like that.”

“Have you seen what you’ve done?”

Hunith’s voice is cold enough to freeze water, and Merlin feels her shift him until he’s facing his father, and then she rolls his sleeves up. He looks down at his own exposed arms, sickly fascinated by the hand shaped bruises rapidly blackening on his skin.

He hears a funny choking sound and it’s enough for him to finally lift his head and look at his father.

Balinor is crying. 

His shoulders are shaking and tears are slowly trickling down his face. 

Merlin’s never seen his father cry before. He’s a big man but he looks small right now. 

“I’m sorry, Merlin. I didn’t mean to… I just want to keep you safe. I just want to keep you safe.”

“Daddy,” Merlin says and suddenly he’s straining out of his mother’s arms because it’s so wrong, seeing his dad cry like that and look so small. Merlin wants to make him feel better…

Hunith tightens her hold on him for a second and then reluctantly lets him go. He drops down off the chair and runs towards his dad, and then Balinor is picking him up, hoisting him onto his lap, pulling him close to his chest.

He can hear his dad’s heartbeat, loud and strong, and he lets the steady rhythm sooth him. 

“I love you, little man. Never forget that.” 

Balinor kisses the top of his head.

“I promise I won’t hurt you again.”

“You better not,” Hunith says from across the room, but Merlin can hear her voice has softened slightly.

He stays in his dad’s arms for the rest of the night, listening to his parents talk softly until he’s lulled to sleep.

His mum drops him off the next day but she’s not allowed any further than the entrance lobby. So he has to sit in the waiting room on his own, save for the four other kids in there. He tries talking to them but they look scared and no-one answers. He’s the last one to be called and when he hears footsteps approaching the door, he quickly recites the spell under his breath and hopes for the best.

When he gets into the office, he’s surprised to find that it’s set up like a doctor’s surgery. The similarities don’t end there, the severe looking man inside makes him stand on the scales and measures his height and then looks inside his eyes and ears. Then he tells Merlin to sit on the chair in the middle of the room and be very still. Merlin tries his best not to fidget as the man attaches two small pads to his head; pads that are connected by wire to a flat grey device. The man turns it on and Merlin experiences a moment of panic, suddenly afraid the machine will shock or hurt him. But it does nothing but emit a faint hum, different numbers flashing up on the screen at a rapid rate. For about a minute the man does nothing but take notes of the numbers. Then he nods, satisfied, and removes the pads from Merlin’s head.

“Below average ability.”

Merlin almost gets annoyed, but then he remembers the spell and keeps his mouth shut. 

The man then disconnects the pad wires from the device and attaches them to a small black box with a tiny glowing chip embedded in the middle. He taps a few buttons and nods again.

“I’m going to inject you with the chip now. Put your head forward.”

Merlin steels himself as the man walks behind him and takes hold of his neck with a none too gentle grip. He doesn’t like injections, but he promised himself he wouldn’t cry or make a fuss so he bites down on his bottom lip.

It hurts a lot. Much more than his mum said it would. The needle feels like it’s going in incredibly deep and Merlin can’t help but let out a little sob. 

The man snorts dismissively. 

“It’s all done now, no need to cry about it.”

Merlin angrily blinks back tears, not wanting this man to see him upset. He waits for the man to put a plaster over the injection site and then he gets up, head held high.

“Can I go?”

The man looks vaguely amused.

“Yes, you can go. Just remember…” He taps his nose. “We’ll be keeping an eye on you.”

Merlin flees. 

 

Two more memories from his childhood stand out.

One is the day it snows almost eight inches overnight. He presses himself against the window until his mum relents and bundles him up tight in a fleece jacket and a bobble hat before letting him run into the garden. They play out there all morning, his dad teaching Merlin how to make a snow angel. They build a huge snow sculpture that’s meant to be a dragon (it comes out a little lopsided), but Balinor lifts Merlin up to sit on its back anyway. He makes dragon sounds while his parents pretend to be villains chasing him, throwing snowballs at his back. Then his mum brings them back inside and makes cocoa with marshmallows and they all sit in front of the fire for the rest of the day, telling stories and playing games. It’s the happiest day of Merlin’s life.

  
  
  
  


The other memory is the weekend his mum takes him to visit an old friend in Liverpool. Merlin’s excited because they don’t tend to travel much. In fact, his parents rarely leave the house. He bounces up and down on his seat in the train, watching the trees and buildings go rushing by, excited to see a bit more of the world.

He doesn’t remember much of what they actually do in Liverpool; it’s the train journey there and back that sticks in his mind. 

That, and the fact that when they get back home on Sunday night, his father is gone. 

  
  
  
  


When Arthur is ten years old, his father tells him he is a soldier.

_We are at war, son, and the hardest part is that the enemy hides in plain sight. Fooling the common people, passing themselves off as decent members of society. Spreading their poison to everything they touch._

Uther tells him that he’s old enough now to know the truth.

Magic killed his mother.

If he doesn’t join the fight, it’ll kill him too.

He has to toughen up, body and mind, in preparation for the war that’s coming. 

The war to stop the Magicals from infiltrating their society, from threatening everything they hold dear.

The war to make sure innocents like his mother never suffer again.

Arthur listens. He grows up tall and strong because anything else would be unthinkable. 

He trains his body like a soldier. Up every morning at six am; push ups, sit ups, half-hour run. His father shows him how at first, later he trusts him to do it himself. He learns to cook at age thirteen, when Uther starts spending more time away from home. Healthy food only; perfectly measured portions of protein and vegetables, lots of brown rice, lots of chicken. Uther doesn’t allow chocolate or crisps in the house. Or fizzy drinks, or fast food, or sugary cereals. Even when Arthur turns eighteen, he's expected not to drink alcohol. There’s a long list of things that Uther believes to be distractions from ‘the cause’ and Arthur tries to learn them all as best he can.

In physical terms, he’s as fit as any soldier. Mentally, he’s a failure.

As a child, he remembers Uther reading to him before bed, and all the stories being about the dangers of magic, in one way or another. When he gets older, Uther replaces the story books in his room with textbooks, the kind that have graphs and charts and statistical evidence to show that Magicals are less intelligent, less empathetic, more prone to violent crime. The documentaries Uther makes him watch in the evenings tend to reach the same conclusion. They’re mostly old though, the quality blurry because, as Uther puts it, the liberal media is too cowardly to make shows that tell the truth anymore. The action films they watch are dated too, relics from a bygone era when it was perfectly acceptable to portray Magicals as hooded eyed, long fingered sadists who lure innocent women and children to their evil lairs before the hero bursts in to save the day. The genre was mostly played out by the 1970s, which is another thing that Uther blames on political correctness gone mad.

Arthur doesn’t mind the books or the documentaries, and he quite likes the action films. It’s the other films he can’t stomach. The videos that Uther brings home in plain cardboard cases, and stores neatly in the hidden room in the basement.

Videos that show Magicals fighting in vicious underground cage matches; owned and controlled by red-faced managers who scream violent encouragement from the side-lines. Videos filmed on shaky cameras that show Magicals being accosted on the street, knocked to the ground, kicked from all sides until their faces collapse in a horrible mess of flesh and bone. Videos of mock-trials where Magicals are tied to chairs and made to account for their various crimes—before being sentenced to brutal and humiliating punishments by a jeering mob.

Arthur never knows where his father gets these videos from. All he knows is that they make him physically ill. He has nightmares about them, waking up in a cold sweat after dreams in which he’s the Magical and they hunt him down instead. But Uther can never know his weakness, so he locks his horror up inside. He sits in front of the television, nails dug so far into his hands that they occasionally bleed, praying that his face isn’t giving him away.

His father figures it out eventually. Figures out that while Arthur might have trained himself to be the perfect physical specimen for the war on magic, his mind is sadly unfit for the task at hand. He hides it as best he can, but Uther sniffs it out. 

His father doesn’t give up on him, not right away. That comes later. At first Uther seems convinced he can bring Arthur around to the right path. Arthur’s set to inherit the family business: Arkstone. Officially, it’s a conglomerate dedicated to research into Magical affairs. Unofficially, Arkstone is dedicated to detecting and eliminating the Magical threat in British society. A company like that needs a committed leader and so his father tries every method he can think of to awaken the kind of fervour inside his son that will remove any doubts about the anti-Magical crusade. 

Until one of his methods almost gets Arthur killed.

Arthur doesn’t remember that much about the night he nearly dies. The first part is clear enough, but after the spell hits it’s all fragmented pieces. His recollections are blurry, out of focus. He has little details but not the full picture.

He remembers Uther sitting him down in the morning and telling him that they were going somewhere special that night. That usually only adults went, but he was taking Arthur because he knew his son was mature enough to handle it.

Arthur remembers basking in the praise. It came along so rarely in his house.

He’s excited all day, rushing around the house, getting all of his chores done so he’d be ready to leave. Uther takes the Jeep, which is unusual, but it turns out to be quite a drive to their destination. The terrain gets bumpy about half an hour in and Arthur realises they’re leaving the city. He wants to ask more questions but Uther doesn’t like that so he stays quiet and stares out of the window.

When the car finally slows, Arthur looks out to see a gigantic disused warehouse. It’s clearly been abandoned for quite some time, several windows are smashed and the signs are long faded. When they walk up to the entrance, a burly man is standing guard.

“Alright Pendragon?” he grunts.

“Myror,” Uther nods.

The man turns his gaze on Arthur.

“What’s this, take your daughter to work day? Isn’t he a little young?”

Arthur glares up at him. He’s fifteen, he’s not a child. 

“He’s old enough,” Uther says coldly. “If you’ll excuse us.”

He pushes past the man and Arthur follows, ignoring the smirk that this Myror sends his way.

It’s dark inside the warehouse and it takes a second for Arthur’s eyes to adjust.

He sees a crowd of people huddled in one area of the warehouse, in a rough kind of circle. They seem to be staring at something in their midst, but Arthur can’t see through the throng to spot what it is. 

He’s craning his neck when Uther grabs his shoulder, spinning him round to face him.

“Stick close to me,” he warns. “I don’t want you wandering off.”

Arthur nods.

“What are they all looking at?”

His father’s face splits into a slightly feral grin.

“Come and see.”

He follows his father to the outskirts of the circle, where Uther taps a bald man on the shoulder.

“Uther, good to see you!”

“Brought the boy with me,” his father says, jerking his thumb in Arthur’s direction. “Any chance we can get him a better view?”

“No problem,” the bald man says and he effortlessly cuts a path through the people in front of him. They grumble a bit but he must have some authority in this area because no-one objects. He feels his father’s hand at his back, pushing him forward through the newly created space.

It’s stiflingly hot the closer he gets to the centre and when he finally makes it to the front the sight that greets him is anticlimactic. It’s just a few men milling around, some chatting with each other, one clutching a hold-all bag that appears to be full of loose bank notes.

He looks quizzically at his father, who checks his watch.

“Shouldn’t be long now.”

“What shouldn’t be long now?” Arthur asks, but Uther just grins in that same strange way.

Ten minutes later Arthur gets his answer. A roar suddenly goes up among the crowd as there’s some movement in the back of the warehouse. The circle parts across from him and suddenly four men are walking into the ring.

That’s not technically correct. Two men are walking and the other two are being lead on chains.

The bottom drops out of Arthur’s stomach and his whole body chills, despite the heat of the warehouse.

The men on chains aren’t being dragged. It’s not like in some of the videos Uther’s made him watch, where captured Magicals get punished in front of screaming crowds. The men aren’t being restrained so they won’t escape.

They’re being restrained so they won’t tear each other apart.

They’re pulling against the chains around their necks, eyes wild and rolling, sweat pouring down their faces, both shirtless. One of them seems to be drooling slightly, and the other’s twitching and shaking.

They’re clearly drugged. Arthur doesn’t know with what, but he’s heard about drugs that can mess with a Magical’s nervous system; concoctions that keep them compliant or docile. Or–in this case–ready to fight.

The two men are taken to opposite sides of the makeshift ring, growling and snapping at one another across the space. The man with the hold-all full of bank notes steps forward.

“Ladies and gentlemen! You’ve had plenty of time to place your bets, the show is about to begin! In the blue corner we have Tauren, our reigning champion, just as mean and hungry as he always is! And in the red corner our challenger Alvarr, all the way from Donegal, and itching to take home the prize!”

The one the man names as Tauren bares his teeth. He’s taller than his competitor and better built too. Alvarr is slighter, wirier. He’s the one who can’t stop twitching, every so often he flicks at the back of his head like he’s trying to knock a fly away. 

Arthur wants to leave. He wants to go, right now, and never find out what happens next. But Uther is right behind him, and Arthur would never be forgiven. Clearly his father wants him to witness this for whatever reason. He’s been deemed ‘mature’ enough. He can’t let Uther down now.

So he grits his teeth and stares straight ahead, trying not to look too closely at either Magical as the minders unhook the chains from round their necks.

“Are you ready?” The hold-all man roars and the crowd screams in reply.

“Three, two, one, FIGHT!”

The Magicals are suddenly shoved into the centre of the ring, straight for each other. Arthur expects magic to be used straight away but Tauren’s first move is purely physical. He sinks his fist into Alvarr’s chest and Alvarr falls backwards, the force of the blow knocking him off his feet. Tauren moves to deliver a kick but suddenly Alvarr’s eyes flash and Tauren reels, four ugly scratch marks appearing on his ribcage. He stumbles for a second, then his own eyes flash and Arthur winces to see Alvarr’s head bang hard against the concrete floor, as if of its own accord.

The fight begins in earnest then. Arthur shuts his eyes for much of it, praying that Uther can’t see him. But he’s honestly worried he’ll throw up if he has to watch it all, the way the men are ripping each other apart without even laying a finger on each other.

The crowd lets out a particularly rowdy cheer and Arthur opens his eyes to see Alvarr’s eyes bulging, his face slowly turning red like he’s being strangled. Arthur’s never seen a fight like this before but surely Alvarr’s about to pass out, he’s been on the back ropes the whole time and a body can only take so much.

Then, unbelievably, Alvarr breaks free from the strangulation spell. He sucks in air while Tauren watches in amusement, seemingly ready to strike the final blow. But then Alvarr’s eyes flash once again and the crowd turns expectantly to Tauren to see… nothing. No new marks, no wound inflicted.

Then Tauren lets out a terrible noise, a sort of guttering, choking sound. His body convulses and he drops to his knees as blood starts to pour from his mouth. Arthur can only watch in horror as Tauren spasms, more and more blood coming up from his throat. He wants to scream at Alvarr to stop it but there’s nothing anyone can do now and they all watch as Tauren keens, body twisting desperately, before finally collapsing face down on the ground. He does not move again.

There’s a tiny pause.

“Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for our new champion, Alvarr Jones!”

The mob around Arthur goes wild, chanting and whooping as hold-all man lifts Alvarr’s arm in the air in triumph. Alvarr can hardly stand, his twitching has intensified to the point where his whole body is strung tight as a bow, but he manages a hazy sort of nod to the crowd.

“The prize fight might be over but we have plenty more entertainment for you tonight, so stick around!” The man announces happily.

Arthur’s had enough. He can’t stay a second longer. 

He turns to his father.

“Dad, can I go wait in the car?”

Uther glares at him.

“The next fight will be starting soon,” he says, displeasure clear in his voice.

“I know, I just… please Dad,” Arthur begs.

Uther looks vaguely disgusted.

“Fine. Feel free to come back in if you grow a pair,” he says coldly.

Arthur flinches. Uther hands the keys over silently and Arthur bolts.

There’s no one guarding the entrance as he flees, and he’s grateful for that because he throws up almost the second he leaves the warehouse. When he’s finished retching, he shuffles over to the Jeep and climbs into the backseat. He presses his head against the cool leather of the headrest and tries to calm down.

Was Tauren dead? Arthur didn’t know for sure, he could just be unconscious. Surely they wouldn’t let them kill each other? Someone would find out and the police would have to get involved. A blind eye couldn’t be turned to actual murder. Could it?

He shuts his eyes but images of the fight replay in his mind like some kind of sick film that he can’t turn off. Why would his father go to something like this? Did he enjoy it? Did he think Arthur would?

He doesn’t know how long he stays like that but eventually he must doze off because he jerks awake when the car door opens and someone slides into the backseat next to him.

“Dad?” He says sleepily. “Can we go now?”

“Give me the keys, kid,” an unfamiliar voice says and Arthur’s eyes fly open.

It’s Alvarr. Still bloodied and battered from the fight, sweat soaked and stained. 

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Arthur says, mouth so dry he can barely force the words out.

Alvarr laughs, showing a glimpse of sharp yellow teeth.

“No, you got it in one kid. I’m not supposed to be here. That’s why I’m getting out and this car’s the way I’m doing it. So give me the keys.”

Arthur doesn’t know what perverse part of him makes him tighten his hands around the keys. It’s probably that part that tells him he already disappointed Uther once tonight and if he just gives up their Jeep to some insane Magical…

Where is his father?

“Come on,” Alvarr says and he sounds more desperate now. “Don’t make me hurt you.”

Arthur’s fingers clutch the keys harder even as panic rises in his throat.

“My dad’ll be back any minute,” he says shakily.

Alvarr explodes.

“For fuck’s sake!”

He lunges for Arthur, pinning him to the seat and grabbing at his hands.

“No! No! Dad! Dad!” Arthur shouts, and just as Alvarr’s painful squeeze on his wrist makes him drop the keys on the car floor, the door behind Alvarr is ripped open.

“Get the hell away from my son,” Uther says, and Arthur sobs in relief.

Uther’s got the bald man behind him, but Alvarr reacts quicker than either of them expect.

He kicks open the opposite door and then jumps out before dragging Arthur with him, holding him against his body.

“You try anything and he dies,” he yells as Uther runs round to their side of the car. “I can tear him apart from the inside, you know I can.”

Uther turns murderous eyes on the bald man next to him.

“How is he doing this? I thought you were keeping him under control.”

“I don’t know!” The man whines. “He must have found a way to flush the drugs out his system.”

Arthur whimpers, feeling Alvarr’s arm tighten round his neck as he shifts his hold on him. He can feel the sweat from the other man’s heated body seeping through his t-shirt, the tickle of his erratic breaths on his face.

“Help me,” he begs and Uther takes a step forward.

“Don’t fucking move!” Alvarr screams. “I will shred him into little pieces!”

But Arthur sees that Uther’s gaze is looking beyond them and he only has a second to wonder why before the grip holding him in place suddenly slackens, and he feels Alvarr crumple to the ground behind him.

He turns to see Myror standing there, brick still in his hand.

“I told you he was too young,” he says grimly to Uther and for once his father has no reply.

Arthur runs across to his father, only turning back when he’s at a safe distance. Alvarr’s on the ground, groaning, barely conscious. The bald man steps forward, a bag of white powder in his hand.

“Help me get this down his throat,” he says to Myror, who nods and hauls Alvarr into a sitting position.

Arthur can see the exact moment it happens, Alvarr’s eyes focus a little and he sees the bag of powder dangling in front of him. What happens next seems like a primal, instinctive reaction.

Alvarr’s eyes flash and both Myror and the bald man are sent careening backwards, smashing down onto the hard concrete.

Then Alvarr raises his hand and points it straight at Uther, his lips forming the words of a new spell. With only a split second to think about it, Arthur realises the man intends to do more damage than just knocking Uther out.

He doesn’t have time to consciously make a decision. All he has time to do is step in front of his father. Then the spell hits him. 

Pain. That’s all he remembers. Pain starting from his stomach and then stretching out across his whole body. Pain that spirals out from the central point, filling him with such unrelenting agony that it feels like his very skin is screaming, the fibres of his body stretched taut, the blood boiling in his veins…

Then, nothing. Darkness. For a long time.

He wakes up in hospital three weeks later.

  
  
  
  


Uther is sat by his bed, face worn and grey. When Arthur’s eyes blink open for the first time, his father’s fill with tears.

“I thought I’d lost you,” he croaks out, after the doctor has come in and pronounced Arthur to be in stable condition. “They had to restart your heart so many times. I thought the magic was going to overpower you.”

He grips Arthur’s hand above the coverlet.

“What you did for me… I won’t forget, son.”

Arthur doesn’t forget either. Even if he wanted to, his body carried a permanent reminder. The magic left a scar. A small dark mark, to the side of his abdomen, and a series of spidery scars splintering out from it like exposed veins. It doesn’t fade or change colour like a normal scar would, it stays exactly the same. And it twinges, very occasionally. Not enough to hurt. Just enough to notice. 

Arthur’s secretly fascinated by it in those early days, he’s never seen anything like it before. But Uther hates it and so Arthur learns to hate it too, to be ashamed of it. He never swims or goes shirtless in public and even in the shower he avoids looking directly at it.

When he brings home lovers, he never lets them leave the light on.


	2. Chapter One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for minor character death, restraint, and grief/mourning. Also references to past relationships of Merlin and Arthur.

The day after he gets his A-Level results, Merlin sits his mum down at the kitchen table and says the words he’s been rehearsing in his head all night.

“I want to go find Dad.”

Hunith’s face falls. She doesn’t look surprised, exactly, but it clearly hits her hard.

“You don’t know where he is, love,” she says gently. “None of us do.”

The only contact they’d had with Balinor since he’d disappeared had been completely one-sided. About three times a year, a postcard would arrive. The postmarks would be from all over the world and there’d never be a return address.

The messages on them were brief. They said ‘I love you.’ ‘I’m thinking of you.’ ‘I miss you every day.’

It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough. Which was why, since the age of sixteen, Merlin had been attempting to cast a scrying spell on his father, to see where Balinor had gone.

He’d never had any luck. At first his magic had been too weak to do it properly, later his skills developed but he was forced to conclude that Balinor was just too far away for it to work. He’d never given up though and had performed the spell diligently at least once a month since he first taught himself it.

Learning spells was hard without his father there. He had to rely on the books that Balinor had left behind, and there was no-one to assist him with pronunciation or offer any tips. His mum helped as best she could (always on the proviso that he be careful with what he learnt; _careful_ being the spoken and unspoken watchword of his entire childhood) but she only knew what she remembered from her husband. They had both been cut adrift.

But last night, after the small celebratory dinner his mum had insisted on having in honour of his A-Level results, he had retired to his room to try again.

He can sense something is different straight away; the words are barely out of his mouth when an image begins to form in his mind’s eye. Not blurry or unstable like the vague flashes he’s seen before, but sharp and clear. He concentrates and almost lets out a cry of excitement when his father appears before him.

He looks older. There’s grey in his hair and his face is lined. He’s thinner, too, and his clothes are shabby. But he’s alive, and Merlin rejoices. There aren’t many clues to his surroundings; he’s standing in a sparsely furnished room looking out the open window at the night sky. Merlin tries to follow his gaze, to see if the world outside will yield any clues. But it’s a non-descript street, with the kind of houses that exist in so many places.

Merlin focuses with everything he has and tries to pull away from Balinor and travel along the road to look for clues. It’s almost impossible to do; he has to simultaneously concentrate on his father as his anchoring point and try to open up the area around him. The image gets more distorted as he pushes along the road, the features beginning to lose definition. It’s too hard, he can’t hold it. But just as everything starts to dissolve away, he spots a street sign in the distance and makes one final push towards it.

Inchicore Road.

The image vanishes. Merlin barely allows himself time to catch his breath, rushing over to his computer to type the name in before he forgets. He nearly shouts out in shock when Google Maps yields its result.

His father’s in Dublin. Less than an hour’s flight away.

He wants to run and wake his mother immediately, but he forces himself to wait until the next day to tell her what he’s learned.

“I’ve been scrying for him the last couple of years,” Merlin says. “But he’s always been out of range. Until last night… I found him.”

Something flickers in Hunith’s eyes.

“Where?”

“Dublin, Mum,” Merlin says, excited and anxious. “We could get a flight tomorrow. Or the ferry from Holyhead. Or Liverpool. I know the street he’s on and-“

“Merlin,” Hunith says and he stops babbling. “If you want to do this, I won’t stop you. But I can’t come with you.”

“Why not?”

Hunith sighs, and Merlin aches at the familiarity of that sound. He loves his mum so much and she’s done more than her best for him, but her life was full of sighs and he’s never been able to make things better for her.

“Your dad left for a reason. And I’m assuming there’s a reason he never came back. I loved him then and I love him now, but I don’t want to go looking for him.”

“Mum-”

“And I want you to think carefully about going too. It’s been a long time. You might find you’re not as happy to see him as you expect to be.”

Merlin stares at her.

“I’m not mad at him. Not anymore. I just want to see him. Don’t I have a right to see him?”

Hunith smiles then, albeit tiredly, and places her hand on his.

“Of course you do. You’re an adult now. If you want to go, I’ll support you.”

“But you won’t come?” Merlin says. Maybe it’s childish but he feels like if his mum is there then there’s more of a chance for reconciliation. For his dad to admit he was wrong and come back home so they could be a family again.

“No. But take my love with you.”

It’s something his parents used to say when Merlin was little. When he left for school in the morning, or when he headed up to bed at night, Balinor or Hunith would invariably call out to him.

“Take my love with you!”

He hugs his mum close, tall enough now to kiss the top of her head, and yet still feeling like a little child. He’s not sure he’s ready to do this on his own but he has to. And it has to be now, before his father slips away again.

He flies to Dublin the next day. He gets the cheapest flight he can find, which doesn’t land in the city until after ten. He spends the last of his money on a taxi to Inchicore Road and it’s not till the driver asks him which number that he realises he doesn’t know.

He gets out and walks along the street, hoping to see something he recognises. When he comes across a house with a pink door something stirs in his memory, and he thinks he might have seen it in the view from Balinor’s window. He pivots to look across the street and sees a tall, slightly ramshackle house. When he crosses over he finds it’s divided into flats, but the names by the doorbell are too worn and faded to see. He presses the bottom one in the hopes of reaching the owner.

A stooped lady comes out and he asks for Balinor Emrys.

“No one here by that name,” she says and starts to close the door.

“Wait!” Merlin says desperately. “Let me describe him. He’s tall and he’s got black hair and a beard and… I’ve got a picture, hang on.”

He gets out his phone and shows her the photo he took of the picture of Balinor that sits on his dresser.

“Oh, that’s Mr. Chatsworth. Third floor, dear. Flat 6.”

His heart skips a beat. Chatsworth is his mother’s maiden name. Isn’t that proof that Balinor hasn’t forgotten them, that he thinks about them still?

He heads up the stairs before he can change his mind. His nerves don’t strike him fully until he’s stood outside the door, but he forces himself to lift a hand and knock loudly enough to be heard.

There’s a long silence, then a shuffling noise, then nothing. Just when he’s about to give up hope, the door opens a crack and he sees a sliver of a face.

“Yes? What do you want?”

“Balinor?” He says because he’s almost sure it’s him but he doesn’t know, and ‘Dad’ seems much too intimate suddenly to say through a crack in the door…

The eye narrows.

“Who’s asking?”

“It’s me,” he says simply. “It’s Merlin.”

There’s a pause. Then the door swings open and his father’s standing in front of him.

“My Merlin?” He croaks and Merlin feels his eyes fill up.

“Yes,” he says and then Balinor’s arms open wide and he walks straight into them.

He thinks they both cry, a little, stood there embracing in the doorway. And then Balinor brings him inside, sits him down on the couch and goes to put the kettle on.

It’s only one room–the bed in one corner, the lumpy sofa he’s sat on, and a tiny kitchenette to the side is all there really is. It’s very cold and he can see the damp creeping up the walls.

How did his father end up in a place like this?

When Balinor comes back with the tea, Merlin sips on it for a while, unsure of what to say. His father just sits and looks at him, like he can’t believe Merlin’s real. Eventually he breaks the silence.

“You’re so grown up now. So tall. The last time I saw you…” 

He trails off and Merlin feels his temper flare up, unexpectedly.

“The last time you saw me, you told me to have a nice weekend, and then you packed your bags and disappeared,” he snaps.

Balinor nods.

“I know you’re angry-” he begins.

“You fucking think?” Merlin says even though he’d never have dared swear in front of his father before. But the rage his mother warned him about is suddenly flooding through him now that he’s actually here. Is this man even his father anymore? Hadn’t he given up that role when he’d walked out?

“I had to leave,” Balinor says.

“Why?” 

“It’s… it’s complicated.”

“I’m here now,” Merlin says defiantly. “Un-complicate it.” 

Balinor regards him.

“Yes, you are here now. How did you-”

“Scrying spell,” Merlin says dismissively, not wanting to get off topic.

“You can scry?” Balinor says and he looks amazed.

“I’ve been scrying for two years but you were never in range until now.”

“I’ve been in Asia,” Balinor says briefly. “You’ve been scrying since you were sixteen?”

There’s an unmistakable note of pride in his voice and it only winds Merlin up further. This man doesn’t get to be proud of anything Merlin does. 

“Oh, so you remember how old I am, do you?”

“Of course I do,” Balinor says and his voice has become thick. “Every birthday, every milestone, I’ve thought about you. When I knew you’d be starting secondary school, when I knew you’d be taking your exams… I’ve never stopped wishing I was there with you and your mother.”

Merlin explodes.

“But you could have been there! It was your choice to go! Your choice to miss out on me growing up!”

“I know, I know,” Balinor says, massaging his temples. “Just let me explain, alright? Then you can shout all you want.”

And so his father tells him all the things that were kept hidden from him as a child. Balinor didn’t have an office job like Merlin was told at the time – he was working with the Mercia Collective, an underground group trying to find a way to disable the mandatory microchips. They were getting closer and closer when the government caught onto them. The group disbanded immediately, hiding all records of their research, but it wasn’t enough.

“About two thirds of us were arrested in six month period. No trial, no jury, just whisked away by a police van in the middle of the night. I knew they’d be coming for me next.”

He told Merlin he hadn’t intended to leave that weekend.

“Your mum had gone to see a contact in Liverpool to talk about getting legal protection from the Institute. We were trying to figure it out. But I got a call on Saturday warning me that my name had been mentioned. I knew they were coming and I had to go immediately.”

“You could have contacted us after,” Merlin argues. “Arranged a way for us to come and meet you.”

“I could have. But I knew it was over. I’d have to leave the country, spend at least the next decade on the run, if not longer. Did I really want to make you and your mother come with me? You were at school, your mum was working, it was a nice house in a good part of town. How could I ask you to give all that up and come with me for a life full of fear and uncertainty?”

“Bullshit,” Merlin says. “We would have come. We could have supported you. There’s no such thing as a life free from fear and uncertainty.”

“Nonetheless, I made my choice . And I stand by it.” Balinor’s face tightens. “Some of the places I’ve had to go, the things I’ve seen… I couldn’t have let you and your mother live like that.”

In the end Balinor’s explanation makes sense, but it’s not satisfactory. Merlin’s self-aware enough to realise that there’s probably no explanation that could truly satisfy him. However good the reason, his dad still walked out on them. That’s a hurt that’s never going to fully heal.

“So why are you back here then?” He asks finally. “Is the heat off?”

Balinor shakes his head.

“I’m still a wanted man but I had to take the risk. An old friend from the group contacted me, a man by the name of Gaius. I assumed he’d been arrested with the others but he managed to lie low somehow. He’s been continuing our work all this time. And now… he thinks he might have done it.”

“Done what?”

“Found a way to disable the microchips.”

Merlin takes a moment to process that. It’s so counter-intuitive to everything he’s learned so far in life that he can’t quite believe it. The microchips are infallible. There is no getting around them. 

“I was sceptical too,” Balinor says, reading his face. “But I’ve been blocking the signal to mine for years. It is possible, if only a temporary measure. One that takes a lot of magical energy.”

Merlin hadn’t thought to ask why the government had never used it to track him. He didn’t know blocking the signal was possible till today either. Though the amount of energy it takes might explain why his father looks so tired and run down.

"How can you block it?"

Balinor sighs.

"Most couldn't. But Merlin, my magic... and your magic... it's stronger than other people's. Why do you think I made you learn that spell before you were chipped? If they'd registered the amount of power you'd inherited from me... they would have kept far too close an eye on you after that."

Merlin takes a moment to digest this.

"It doesn't feel stronger."

"It doesn't?" Balinor says quietly. "Do you think most Magicals your age can scry? Do you think they could levitate objects aged four like you could? Or make your teddy bears come to life and dance around before you were even walking?"

Merlin's about to protest but there's a part of him that's always known, he suddenly realises. Even with the paltry amount of times he's come into contact with other Magicals, he can tell the difference. His father's books talk about spells taking years to master and Merlin can do them in a matter of days. Everyone knows magic varies greatly from one person to another, but he's been aware for years now that he can do things other people can't.

But there was no-one he could ask about it. His father hadn't been there.

Thinking about that makes him glare at Balinor again.

"Fine, so it's stronger than most. It doesn't matter. You can't destroy a chip. And even if you could, the monitoring department would be alerted straight away. It wouldn't be any kind of freedom, you'd just have to be on the run from them for the rest of your life."

 _Like you have been_ , he isn't quite cruel enough to add.

"That's if you destroy a chip by conventional means," Balinor says intently. "Trying to cut it out of your body and such. We're talking about magical methods here. Gaius has found a way to not only eliminate it, but to prevent any alert being sent to the agency at all."

"But if they looked you up..."

"Yes, then they'd figure it out. But they have no reason to look you up unless you've been convicted of a Magical crime. If people stay out of trouble, don't draw attention to themselves... they can be free."

Free is not exactly the word Merlin would use. Having the chip gone would only be the first step as far as he was concerned.

But... it was an important first step. Human beings didn't deserve to be tracked like cattle. The psychological benefits of having the chip gone could be huge. He knows he'd feel a hundred times better without it under his skin; a foreign object that someone had forced inside him without his permission.

He nods reluctantly.

“So why does Gaius need you?”

“Gaius isn’t a Magical. He has no chip; he can’t test it on himself.”

“You’re going to be his guinea pig?” Merlin says, anger returning. “What if it’s not safe? You could get hurt!”

He hasn’t come all this way to find his father only to lose him again.

“He knows what he’s doing; I have every faith in him. Besides, I would happily risk my own health for the chance to rid our people of these vile things once and for all.”

“Oh you’re big on the whole self-sacrifice thing, aren’t you?” Merlin says bitterly. “Pity you don’t think about all the people you leave behind.”

“I am thinking of you, Merlin,” Balinor says softly. “This is your future I’m trying to safeguard. I’d already made plans to travel straight to Brighton if Gaius was proved correct. Yours would be the first chip we disabled once we knew it worked.”

Merlin feels choked up when he hears that so he turns away.

“Gaius needs some time to work on the finishing touches. I’m staying here until he’s ready to test it out. If you-”

“Don’t tell me to leave because I won’t,” Merlin interrupts. “You’re not sending me away.”

Balinor’s face softens.

“I wasn’t going to. I was about to say that you’re welcome to stay here with me, if you want.”

He looks around the bedsit sadly.

“It’s not much but…”

“Yes,” Merlin says. “I want to stay.”

He looks at his phone and realises that it’s past three am, too late to call his mum even though he promised.

“I’ll have to let Mum know in the morning,” he says and Balinor looks up.

“How is she?”

There’s so much longing in his eyes that it’s painful to behold.

“She’s well,” he says carefully. “Still working at the hospice. Working too hard but…”

Balinor nods.

“Will you come to see her? When we’re done here?”

There’s a short silence and then Balinor nods.

“I will. If she’ll allow it. I will.”

  
  
  
  


His father makes him up a bed on the lumpy couch and uses magic to whip up some blankets and pillows for him. It gets uncomfortable in the few months he stays there, but Merlin doesn’t care. He’s back with his dad for the first time in eight years and he wants to soak up all the time possible with him.

It’s awkward, at first. They dance around each other, unsure of quite how to behave. Merlin’s still angry a lot of the time, but he tries to soften his rage. The years have clearly been hard on his father, he looks downright haunted half the time, and Merlin knows he did what he thought was best when he left. 

Balinor still can’t walk the streets freely for fear of being seen, but on his more energetic days, he changes his appearance using magic and takes Merlin out to see Dublin. They go to the house Balinor grew up in, now a corner shop, and they visit all his old haunts. They sightsee too, although they can’t do more than one thing a day, it takes too much effort for his father to keep the glamour up. 

His favourite day is when they go to the Garden of Remembrance. There’s a sculpture there of people turning into swans and his father tells him they’re the Children of Lir, and relates the story to him. He likes it so much his father leaves him in front of it and goes off to a supermarket to buy some food. Then they have their own picnic, right there and then. Balinor tells him stories about his childhood, about his and Hunith’s courting days, and for once the memories don’t make Merlin sad or angry. He’s happy to listen to them; happy to be here with his father on a hot summer’s day talking about their shared past. He’s missed this for so long.

He doesn’t meet Gaius until the day the phone call comes through, announcing that the spell is finally finished. His father invites him over immediately and then paces the floor until he arrives.

Gaius is an older man with long white hair and keen blue eyes. He has an impressive looking briefcase in his hands but when he opens it up, he only takes a single piece of paper out.

“This is the incantation,” he says. “This is it, exactly.”

Balinor snatches it from him.

“Can I do it right now?” he says.

“Balance, old friend,” Gaius chides. “Sit down and centre yourself. You’ve waited this long, you can wait ten more minutes. It won’t work if you rush it.”

Merlin’s almost amused to see the look Balinor gives Gaius, a mix of irritation and fondness. But he takes the man’s advice, sitting down on the floor and breathing in and out.

After about twenty minutes, Gaius nods.

“Let’s give it a try.”

The spell is long and it takes his father almost a minute to read it out loud. He goes carefully, making sure to pronounce the words correctly. 

When he finally finishes speaking, he lays down the piece of paper. But nothing happens. Just as Merlin is about to despair, his father’s eyes suddenly bulge and he screams in pain.

Merlin’s on his feet in an instant.

“What did you do to him? You–it didn’t work, he’s hurt, you’ve–”

“Shh,” Gaius says intently.

Balinor’s head has jerked forward, and the back of his neck is glowing gold. Merlin can’t tell if this is supposed to happen or not but Gaius is nodding so he has to trust that nothing’s gone wrong.

He focuses on his father and watches in amazement as the skin at the back of his neck begins to pulse. It’s moving up and down slightly, like there’s something under there that wants out and Merlin only has a second to realise what it is before the skin breaks and a tiny speck bursts into the air, lit up by that same golden glow. It hovers for a second, then explodes in a sudden flash of light.

Merlin runs to his father, terrified that he’s been hurt, but Balinor’s lifting his head and laughing, the pain of a few moments ago completely gone.

“It worked, didn’t it?” He says delightedly. “I felt it go!”

Gaius smiles wide.

“It did, old friend.”

Suddenly Balinor’s on his feet, grabbing Merlin by the hands and spinning him round the room, like some crazy, jubilant dance. Merlin begins to laugh too, caught up in the wonder and excitement. They did it! They could finally be free of being tracked like animals!

When they’ve calmed down a little and had something to eat, Balinor turns to him.

“Do you feel ready to give it a go?” He asks quietly.

Merlin nods. He’s scared, but there’s no way he can say no to this.

Gaius makes him go through all the same breathing exercises, although he’s not sure he’s that much more relaxed when they finally begin. Balinor’s been over the pronunciations with him, just like they did when he was little, and he feels confident to read it all out loud.

“Does it hurt?” He says, a little nervously.

“Yes,” his father says honestly. “But only for a minute. And you can hold my hand.”

Merlin grips onto him without question. 

When he’s finished speaking the spell, he experiences that same odd moment of silence. And then a blinding pain shoots through him, so agonising and intense that he nearly throws up from the feeling.

He can hear he’s making noises, whimpering and crying for it to stop, but Balinor only holds his hand harder until Merlin feels his head get thrown forward by some invisible force. Then something’s pushing at the skin of his neck and he wails louder, an unbearable pressure building up inside of him. He’s aware of his skin breaking but nothing more after that. He passes out.

When he comes round he’s lying in the bed and his father is dabbing at his forehead with a cool cloth.

“You with us, son?” Balinor’s voice is gruff and Merlin knows that means he’s trying to conceal the fact that he was worried.

“Did it work?” He says anxiously.

Balinor’s face cracks into a smile.

“Yes. You’re officially chip free.”

“Yay,” Merlin says weakly.

“Get some rest,” his father says, ruffling his hair. “I’ll take the couch.”

Merlin often wonders later if things would have been different if he hadn’t been in the bed that night. It’s impossible to tell but he spends much of the next few years inventing scenarios in which events play out differently, in which he does something to save the day. 

In the actual event, he does nothing. It happens so fast, even his memory of it feels unnaturally speeded up.

The first knock doesn’t rouse him, but the shout of “Garda, open up!” does. The intervening pause between that and the door being kicked down can’t be more than two seconds. He’s sitting up, still blinking sleep out of his eyes when the first of the police flood into the room.

Even the sight of the guns doesn’t help him wake up any faster.

“Freeze, Emrys,” one of the men shouts at Balinor. “We know you have magic. No sudden movements or-”

He never finishes the sentence. Merlin’s brain finally kicks into gear and he lets out a startled cry. Evidently no-one noticed him before on the bed in the corner and his noise shocks the police. Enough that one turns to train his gun on Merlin.

“No!” Balinor shouts and he dives forward. To this day Merlin doesn’t know what his father was trying to achieve; only that he saw a gun pointed at his son and moved on reflex.

Two officers open fire. One shot hits Balinor in the shoulder, the other in the chest. He drops to the floor.

After so much movement and noise, the following seconds of silence are deafening. The police are all frozen in place, staring down at the body. 

Then Merlin starts to scream.

He screams so much he has to be sedated in the end. He wakes up in a hospital bed the next day. He moves on auto-pilot, waiting until the guard outside the door is distracted, and then begins running for his life. He gets all the way to the docks and uses his magic to steal a man’s wallet, trading in the cash for a ticket on the ferry to Liverpool. When he gets there, he makes a reverse charge call to his mum from a payphone. 

He’s sobbing so hard down the phone she can barely understand him, but she gets his location out of him. She shows up in a borrowed car four hours later and he clings on to her the moment she steps out of it. It takes him the whole drive home to fully tell her what happened, and he nearly works himself up into hysteria again. She gives him two pills when they get to the house and lets him sleep in her bed with her. In the morning when the police show up to inform her of the death of her husband, she tells Merlin to hide in the wardrobe and not to come down under any circumstance.

No charges are ever pressed against the officers who shot Balinor and no wrongdoing is ever admitted. The death is recorded as a case of mistaken identity, although Merlin and Hunith both know that the guards showed up that night because they’d discovered that Balinor Emrys was back in town. Merlin tortures himself for a long time with the thought that it was all his fault, that he made his father more conspicuous by staying there with him. Hunith tells him to stop; that Balinor made his own choices. He came back to Dublin of his own accord, knowing the risks.

Merlin never tells her that Balinor was planning on coming back with him to see her again. The fact that they never got to be reunited tears him apart inside. 

The other thing that tears him apart is that he magically acquires a copy of the official police report (against Hunith’s wishes). The report lists that an ‘unknown male, approximately eighteen years old’ was present in the bedsit on the night of the incident. There’s an asterisk next to it leading to a footnote at the bottom of the page. The footnote says: ‘Possible rent-boy.’ Merlin swears there and then that he’ll clear his father’s name one day, let everyone know who Balinor Emrys was and how he died. 

They have a quiet funeral; there aren’t many people to invite. Gaius has vanished again and Merlin’s attempts to scry him are fruitless, though admittedly his magic’s not really performing at its best level. But his mother seems content with a small ceremony. She wants Balinor to be cremated.

“He never liked to be hemmed in, your father. This way I can scatter him out in the trees. He was a man made to live outdoors.”

After the service, Hunith leaves him alone to say goodbye to the coffin before it’s taken away. 

He rests his hand on the smooth wood, thinking about everything he and his father had shared in the last few months, about the man he had finally come to understand.

“Take my love with you,” he whispers. 

And then he leaves him there.

  
  
  
  


Merlin stays at home for much of the next year, too depressed to even leave the house most days. Eventually his mother gives him an ultimatum. Find a job, apply for university, or get out of Brighton and see the world.

He picks the third option. A bit of money comes through from Balinor’s life insurance and his mother gifts it to him.

“Go out and live a bit, love. You’re not honouring his memory by wasting away indoors. The one thing your father knew how to do was seize the moment.”

He decides he wants to go as far away as possible. He also wants to go to a place where anti-Magical sentiment is less prevalent. There’s nowhere in the world where magic is accepted exactly, but there are places where it’s easier. Japan and Norway are both known for tolerance, and he decides to try Japan first because it’s further away. He makes contact via the internet with a girl called Ai in Kyoto who’s looking for a roommate, and he flies over with only a single piece of hand luggage. He wants a fresh start.

Ai turns out to be the best thing that could have happened to him. She’s friendly, but not too friendly. She takes him out of himself when he’s getting depressed, but she also leaves well alone when he needs some space. She shows him the city, but she lets him discover some places for himself. He tries to do right by her in return; keeping the little flat clean, making her dinner in the evenings. He gets a job teaching English in a local school, and makes sure his rent is never behind. Her English is flawless, but he also tries to learn Japanese on the side, to communicate better with her.

Ai works at a tattoo parlour and he finds himself fascinated by what she does. Her own body is covered in intricate ink, and he occasionally tags along to her work to see her in action. The concentration on her face is fantastic when she’s working on a design, and after only five months of living there, he asks if she’ll tattoo him. She asks what he wants and he shyly tells her his idea: two miniature merlin falcons. 

“Where?” she asks.

“Back of my hands,” he says, holding them up. He wants to be able to see them all the time, but she’s already shaking her head.

“We don’t do hands if you’ve never had a tattoo before. You might change your mind, and then there’s no hiding them.”

Merlin begs and pleads but she won’t relent. Eventually, she suggests a compromise. 

“I’ll bring home a henna set tomorrow. I’ll draw the birds on the back of your hands once every few weeks, okay? You can see if you really want it.”

“How long for?" He asks and she laughs.

“Until you leave Kyoto.”

“But that might be years yet!” Merlin says, appalled.

“No, I don’t think so. I think maybe one more year for you, then you’ll go.”

Merlin doesn’t bother to ask her how she knows that; he’s learned to trust it when Ai makes a prediction. A part of him wonders if she has the Sight, but he’s too afraid to ask. 

He’s been attending classes on Magical history in a little room at the back of a local temple, but he still can’t be open about what he is. It’s too risky, even if people here are noticeably less afraid of magic.

She’s right, anyway. He loves Kyoto, but eighteen months in, he gets the urge to move on. He gives Ai plenty of notice so she can find a new flatmate.

“And also, in case you’ve forgotten,” he says, holding up the back of his hands one night as they sit down to dinner. “I’ve done my time with the henna. I want my merlins.”

Ai puts down her glass and gives him an appraising look. Then she nods.

“Okay. I’ll book you in.”

Merlin grins happily.

“I won’t regret them, I promise.” 

“I believe you. And I suppose you can always cover them with magic if you really need to.”

There’s a long silence.

Merlin looks for judgement in her eyes, for fear or condemnation. There is none. She looks as open and unaffected as she always does.

“Yes,” Merlin says at last. “Although it’s a hard spell to do.”

Ai smiles at him, like he’s given the right answer.

“Okay then. Tomorrow.”

The tattoos are painful but he welcomes it as part of the price to be paid. He loves them instantly. When he hugs Ai goodbye the following month, he tells her he’ll think of her whenever he looks at them.

“And I will hang a picture of them in the studio, to always think of you,” she says.

  
  
  
  


They stay in touch after that. He sends her photos of his travels through the rest of Japan, then his later journeys through Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. She sends him pictures of the new designs she’s inked, and of the famous cherry blossoms when they bloom, teasing him about how overwhelmed he was when he first saw them in person.

He flies to Norway seven months later and spends some time living in Bergen. He gets another two tattoos while he’s living there, these ones on his forearms. They’re maple leaf designs, beautifully drawn, and he’s thinking of his father’s love of nature when he chooses them. 

  
  
  
  


The tattoo artist, Elena, trips twice when she’s leading him into the back, but fortunately she turns out to have a completely steady hand when it comes to the inking. She makes him laugh so much during the process that they end up going out for drinks later, and she rapidly becomes a friend. She takes him on a trip down the fjords, and then up to the Svalbard Islands to see the northern lights, and shows him all the best bars in the city. 

Her humour is a surprising salve to the intensity of Merlin’s life in recent years. She helps him find the funny side to things again, something he hadn’t even known he was missing. Elena doesn’t take anything too seriously and she teases Merlin mercilessly when he does. Day by day he can feel himself unclenching slightly, relaxing more in her presence. She coaxes him out of his darkest moods, and she distracts him on the days when the pain just won’t go away.

It wouldn’t have worked two years ago. He needed to meet Ai first, to have the quiet and the space and the time to heal. But Elena reminds him of all the things he forgot about when he locked himself away in his grief. The excitement of meeting different people, seeing different places. How to make the most of things, how to take something positive from every situation. 

It doesn’t come naturally to Merlin; he has to work hard at it. But he uses the leaf tattoos to spur him on. They remind him that beauty exists in the world, that there’s always something out there worth seeing if you know where to look. And after he leaves Norway, he and Elena speak every week on the phone, and she reminds him too.

He also uses his time in Bergen to seek out any other Magicals he can find. He finds odd pockets around the city of like-minded people, and there’s a warm welcome wherever he goes. He learns a lot from their cultural beliefs and offers up his own in return. He’s beginning to understand a lot more about magic, and in the process a lot more about himself.

He’s in Norway just shy of a year, working in pubs and restaurants until he scrapes the cash to make one final trip: to America. He starts on the West Coast and does the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas and San Francisco. Then he heads out east and does New York and Boston, before ending up in Washington DC.

The timing is fortuitous. Obama is trying to push through legislation to outlaw the Magical Surveillance Act, which allows the government to freely spy on Magical citizens. The House Republicans are trying to block the motion and Merlin goes on many protest marches and rallies in support of the repeal. It feels nice to be part of a committed crowd of activists– both Magical and non-Magical – who are openly agitating for his civil rights. He finds he likes the political world and campaigning, it’s something he has an affinity for. And they triumph. Obama repeals the Act. When he finally leaves America to head back to the UK, he feels strangely optimistic about the future.

He can’t wait to get home and see his mother. They’ve been Skyping at least twice a week, but it’s not the same and he longs to be able to hug her again.

But there’s one stop he has to make before going back to Brighton.

  
  
  
  


Although he holds the image of his father close, and tries to keep his memory alive, he rarely lets himself think about the months they spent together in Ireland. It’s too painful. But when he’s ready to leave America, he suddenly realises he can’t begin his life again in England without confronting this part of his past.

So he flies to Dublin and checks himself into a cheap hostel in the centre of town. It’s not summer like it was last time he was here, the winter’s coming on and that makes it slightly easier somehow. The city doesn’t look like it did back then. It’s as though these aren’t the same streets he and his father walked together.

It’s still hard though. There are enough memories popping up to keep him occupied. He quickly realises that avoiding the places they visited before isn’t really confronting the problem head on, so he resolves to go back to where they went together.

Some of the museums and attractions are not too bad, but he feels like he’s been punched in the stomach when he finally returns to the Garden of Remembrance. It’s suddenly so raw, so recent; he can remember the way his father looked as they ate their food together, the way he spoke, the way he laughed. 

He sits cross legged in front of the Children of Lir statue and stares up at it, lost in the memory of a day in the sun with his father’s warm hand on his shoulder.

“You know the story?” says a voice from behind him.

He turns to see a good looking man with chin length brown hair and a thin white shirt open to halfway down his chest.

“Yes,” he says evenly, and turns back to the fountain.

The man is apparently undeterred by Merlin’s lack of response because he flops down beside him on the ground.

“I’m not big on it, myself. Typical Irish story, all tragedy and no redemption.”

“There’s redemption,” Merlin says before he can stop himself. “They turn back into people at the end.”

“Yeah, so old that they immediately wither and die.”

“They get baptised first,” Merlin says defensively, and the man raises an eyebrow.

“Although I suppose that’s only a happy ending if you believe in God,” he concedes.

“Exactly. Me, I’d like to do some real living before the afterlife beckons.”

As if to prove his point, the man reaches into his shoulder bag and takes out a hip flask.

“Swig?” He asks.

“It’s barely past midday,” Merlin says.

“You got somewhere to be?”

“No.”

“Well then.”

Merlin almost tells the man to get lost, but the words die on his tongue. There’s something vaguely irresistible about the mirth dancing in the stranger’s eyes, and he really doesn’t have anywhere else to be right now.

Impulsively he grabs the flask and takes a long drink. He guessed it would be whiskey but it burns his throat all the same.

The man whoops.

“Thattaboy. We’ll make an Irishman out of you yet. What’s your name?”

“Merlin.”

The man raises the flask in the air and winks.

“Cheers to you, Merlin. I’m Gwaine.”

He downs what looks like half the flask in one go and then smacks his lips in satisfaction. 

“So, you new to the city?”

“Just passing through.”

“You ever been before?”

“Once,” Merlin says. “A while ago.”

“Then you clearly need a guide. Lucky you ran into me.”

“Is it?” Merlin says.

“Oh yeah. Stick with me kid, I’ll show you a good time.”

Merlin laughs in spite of himself. Gwaine is too confident to be true, but suddenly Merlin feels like being mindless.

“Okay,” he says. “Let’s go.”

They spend the next two months practically living in each other’s pockets. Gwaine insists that Merlin stops paying for his hostel and comes to crash at his place. Although technically it isn’t Gwaine’s place, it belongs to a friend of his who’s gone off on a PhD research trip for half a year. Merlin soon learns that Gwaine has friends like these all over the globe; that he knows enough people to not be hard up for accommodation in even the most far off places. He doesn’t ask where Gwaine gets his money from, he thinks it might be inherited but the only shadow he ever sees on Gwaine’s face comes from when he asks about Gwaine’s family, so he learns not to. It’s not like he wants to talk about his family either.

Gwaine does make small bits of cash here and there selling artwork that he does. He can sketch very well, his style is minimalist and evocative, and some days he wanders round St. Stephen’s Green and offers to draw for the tourists sitting on the grass. Later they spend the money on whiskey in rough pubs off the main drag. Merlin’s grown used to the taste, although he can’t learn to love Guinness; to many a landlord’s disgust.

Other days Gwaine takes him to the attractions; the Hugh Lane gallery, the castle, the Dublin Writer’s Museum. It’s six weeks before they make it to Trinity College Library to see the Book of Kells; Gwaine maintains that it’s overrated but Merlin insists. It isn’t until he’s inside that he realises what was drawing him here, what he recognised in the images of the Chi Rho monogram they feature in all the tourist guides and leaflets.

It’s his father’s tattoo. The twisting, intricate pattern that Balinor wore with pride on his shoulder, the one that Merlin could spend endless minutes tracing with his fingers when he was a little boy. 

Gwaine asks him why he’s studying one particular page so closely but he can’t speak. A wave of memories is rushing over him with such intensity that he feels dizzy. The room starts to spin slightly and he sways on his feet, about to fall. Then strong hands are taking hold of him, leading him from the room and through the exit, to sit on some steps outside.

Merlin breathes in the fresh air, Gwaine rubbing his back.

“Thought I’d lost you for a minute there, mate. You alright?”

The usual teasing tone is gone from his voice. 

“I’m-” Merlin tries to say but his voice comes out funny. “I... my dad had a tattoo.”

He stops and draws a breath.

“My dad’s tattoo was designed like the stuff in there.”

Gwaine nods as though he understands but he doesn’t really, and so Merlin tries to help him out.

“My dad’s dead,” he says and it sounds wrong so he repeats it. “My dad’s dead. My dad’s dead. My dad’s dead. My dad’s-”

“Shh, okay,” Gwaine says softly and he folds Merlin into his arms, but Merlin can’t stop and he keeps on saying the same three words, for what feels like a very long time.

He doesn’t stop until he starts to cry and eventually the lump in his throat is so big he can’t get the words out anymore.

Gwaine holds him through it.

That night they sleep together for the first time. The surprise is how gentle and affectionate Gwaine is: Merlin expected him to be all rough passion, but Gwaine undresses him slowly and with great care, lavishing kisses on every part of him. In the morning he brings Merlin breakfast in bed, and feeds him little bits of toast. They don’t go out that day, they just stay curled up on the sofa; Merlin resting his head on Gwaine’s lap, Gwaine absent-mindedly stroking his hair. 

The next week Gwaine takes Merlin to a tattoo parlour down near the river and Merlin gets a triskelion tattooed onto his chest. Gwaine drew the design for him, with Merlin remembering as much about Balinor’s as he could, so that it would be as similar as possible. But Gwaine persuades him to triple the design in size and to add something of his own too. Merlin thinks about it and chooses a dragon. Like the little toys his father used to carve for him. The finished design is the perfect mix between his father’s tattoo and something new, something made just for him.

  
  
  
  


It hurts, maybe not as much as the merlins, but it takes much longer to do. Gwaine lets Merlin grip his hand the entire time.

Ten days later, Gwaine accompanies Merlin to the airport. When Merlin tells him it’s time to go home, Gwaine only smiles and raises his eyes to the heavens.

“I knew I couldn’t keep you forever,” he says.

“You could come with me,” Merlin says, knowing that he won’t.

“No, I’m itching to get away from these isles for a bit. Try somewhere new.”

“Have you ever been to Norway?” Merlin asks and Gwaine says no. So Merlin tells him to go to Bergen and gives him Elena’s email address. He thinks they’d get along very well.

At the airport Gwaine produces a bottle of expensive cologne and a tiny hand-drawn picture of the Children of Lir, as four small swans in the water. He slips them into Merlin’s hands and then kisses him once, swiftly. Then he turns and walks away, without looking back.

  
  
  
  


Arthur falls in love in his first year at university.

The fact that he’s at university at all is a small miracle. It’s the culmination of a plan he unconsciously set in motion the day he woke up in that hospital bed after Alvarr’s attack. The night in the warehouse had opened his eyes. He loved his father but he had to get away from him. Uther’s obsession with magic had consumed the father he once was and the bitter angry man left in his place was no substitute. Arthur had to leave before he ended up just like him.

It wasn’t that he disagreed with his father’s stance on magic, exactly. He had no particular love for the Magical community and he believed they’d always be outsiders in society. They were genetically too different from normal people; their values and customs too strange. But beyond that, he couldn’t muster up much hatred for them. Uther’s vision of them as an all-powerful threat simply didn’t ring true. Most Magicals only had a limited array of spells at their disposal. Some barely had enough power to boil a kettle. The older Arthur got, the more his father’s insistence that Magicals would bring about the destruction of Britain seemed ridiculous. And the times were against him. The people had elected a pro-Magical party, laws and strictures against magic were being relaxed every day; and Arthur hadn’t noticed society collapsing into the mire just yet. 

It had been a hard thing for him to acknowledge that his father might not be right. It went against everything he’d been brought up to believe and it took nearly being killed to admit it. He can’t forget what he saw and heard that night. He can’t forget the fact that his father brought him to a place that almost cost him his life. The kind of anti-Magical fervour that possessed his father wasn’t moral anymore. It was mania. And Arthur was in danger every day he stayed around Uther and his seemingly unshakable obsession.

He didn’t want to leave home so he could actively work against his father. Arthur wasn’t about to go out and start agitating for Magical rights, and his father didn’t have to worry about him bringing home a Magical partner one day. But he wasn’t going to work for their repression anymore, either. The best case scenario was having absolutely nothing to do with a Magical for as long as he lived. Let them get on in their own way and he’d get on in his. 

(He tells himself that this was a clear-sighted decision made after the events of the warehouse, based on logic and rationalism alone; and never lets himself remember the look in Alvarr’s eyes – wild and desperate and pitiful beyond belief.)

A key part of this plan is making sure he never ends up working at Arkstone in any capacity.

When he receives his offer letter from UCL, he approaches his dad. His presentation has been six months in the making and he doesn’t falter.

His hands are shaking as his father looks over the letter, brow creased.

“Spanish and Latin American Studies? What sort of nonsense is that?”

 _The kind of nonsense that will transport me to a country far away from you_ , Arthur thinks, but he humbly explains that his choice of degree could offer expansion opportunities for Arkstone in other regions.

“You think you can handle the workload, do you?” His father asks doubtfully. “We both know you’re no academic, son.”

“I met the grade requirements to do the course,” Arthur points out, as respectfully as he can. He barely even feels the sting of Uther’s implications about his intelligence or lack thereof. His father’s been plucking on that string for years; it’s like background music now. 

“And you would start at Arkstone when you graduate?” Uther says slowly.

“Yes,” Arthur lies. He has no intention of ever coming back once he leaves this place, but he’ll say what he needs to for now.

Uther fixes him with a beady gaze and Arthur holds his breath. If his father says no now, then it’s all over. He doesn’t know what to do if that happens, he can move out on his own accord, but he’d have to get a job then, find a flat, start supporting himself…

“You’ll work at Arkstone in the holidays,” Uther says finally.

Arthur’s knees nearly buckle with relief.

“Yes sir.”

“That includes Christmas and Easter, not just summer,” Uther says sharply.

“Yes sir.”

It’s a small price to pay. And once his degree’s in his hand, he’ll be able to find a job on his own, make money for himself. His father won’t have any kind of hold over him to keep him at Arkstone.

It’s not coincidental that he’s chosen a subject that primes him to live in another country. All being well, in four year’s time, he can leave England and his father behind for good.

Uther doesn’t accompany him on moving day so he packs one large case and a rucksack, and takes a bus to his new halls of residence. All around him are parents moving their teenagers in, but he feels only the slightest of pangs. He wants to do this on his own – to prove that he can.

He ends up sharing a flat with five other boys. They play loud music at all hours, and drink a lot. Arthur’s not used to so much noise, and he has to be careful with alcohol since he’s barely touched a drop for the first eighteen years of his life. They stop inviting him to hang out with them in the common room after a while, and one day he overhears them laughing about how weird he is.

He tells himself not to care. He’s lonely but that’s nothing new. He never had many friends at school either; Uther discouraged Arthur from wasting his time befriending other children. Time spent socialising was time not spent training, and Uther was always terrified that Arthur might end up making the acquaintance of a person with magic. 

He keeps his head down for a couple of months, finding it hard enough to muddle through his coursework and language labs without the added pressure of making friends. But after a while he starts to covet the easy relationships forming around him. Most other first years seem to be forgoing the studying in favour of mixing and mingling. He’s an outsider to the camaraderie and banter that goes on around him, and he suddenly wants in. He came here to study hard so he could find a job and get away from his father, but it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to pick up a few friends on the way. He’s surrounded by people for the first time in his life and it’s getting harder to ignore how starved for company he is. So he decides to turn things around.

It’s this decision that leads to him standing outside a pub on a chilly night in November, smoking a cigarette someone gave him because he’s never had one before and he wanted to see how it tastes.

Horrible, as it turns out, and he has to concentrate on not coughing and giving the game away. He doesn’t want anything to make him stand out in a bad way.

Arthur likes his course mates; he likes their easy going attitudes and their casual disregard for the kind of rules he’d been brought up to think of as sacred. He knows they think he’s a bit odd: slightly standoffish and bad at casual conversation. But they’d invited him out all the same and he wants to prove himself tonight; to show that he’s more than just the quiet guy in class who sits by himself and writes down every word the professor says. 

He’s been practising his small talk in the mirror the last few weeks, trying hard to smile in a way that looks natural, to rehearse a friendly greeting to extend to passers-by. He puts the theory into practice during his last lecture; picking Elyan as a target for his muttered ‘hello’, as what he’d seen of the guy so far suggested he was the approachable type. Sure enough, Elyan smiles and waves in return; and at the end of the lecture Arthur doesn’t rush out like he normally does. He lingers, packing up his things near where Elyan and his friends are talking.

“Swan and Hare for pre-drinks, yeah?” A tall bloke is saying. 

“Sounds good,” Elyan says, and then he looks over at Arthur sidling past.

“You fancy it, Arthur?” 

“Pub night?” Arthur says, clearing his throat.

“Yeah, the Swan down on Larch Road. Should be a laugh,” Elyan says easily.

“Cool,” Arthur says, and softens his brevity with a smile.

“Great. Around eight, yeah?”

Arthur actually arrives at eight, which he later learns is not done. No-one ever shows up on time for nights out. But he waits it out and when the rest arrive, he falls back on a tip he’d read in a Fresher’s Guide the summer before.

_Get a round in and you’ll make some friends for life._

Sure enough, his course mates give a slight cheer as he passes round the pints, and there’s a few friendly back slaps and nods. Arthur unclenches slightly. Perhaps he can do this after all.

He doesn’t contribute much to the conversation; happy to listen whilst at the same time slightly anxious to be thought of as boring. But he doesn’t really know what to say. He hasn’t spent all that much time around people his own age before. He’s not familiar with all the references they make or a lot of the slang they use. 

Still, he thinks he must be acquitting himself well enough when Elyan makes a point of inviting him outside with the others for a cigarette, offering him one from his own pack. He’s concentrating so hard on not choking on the smoke that he doesn’t notice the girl until she moves to stand beside him.

She’s wearing a pale pink dress and some soft fabric shoes and he thinks for a second how badly she’s dressed for the weather before she looks directly at him.

Her eyes are very blue. And very big and very… he can’t quite breathe properly when he looks into them. 

“Do you have a light?” She says and her voice is soft, musical.

His suspicions that Elyan is a stand up bloke are confirmed as he feels him shove a lighter into his hand from behind.

“Here,” Arthur says, and holds it out.

She dips her head to catch the flame, cigarette dangling from her mouth. When it lights she draws a slow deep breath, and exhales a curl of smoke into the night air.

“Thanks,” she says, and there’s a pause. Arthur knows he should fill it but he can’t think of a single thing to say. Luckily, she speaks again.

“Haven’t seen you here before.”

“I’m a fresher,” Arthur says, grateful to have an answer. “Are you-”

“Second year. Chemistry. You?”

“Latin American Studies.”

“Oh, you speak Spanish? Portuguese?”

“Badly,” he says, and for some reason they both laugh a little.

“But you’re learning, right?” She asks.

“Yes,” Arthur says. “We get to go and study abroad in third year so hopefully…”

“Where do you want to go?”

Arthur considers.

“Peru, I think. I like the sound of it.”

“Can’t say I know much about it.”

“Me neither. I literally just like the sound of the name.”

They laugh again, and it’s stupid, but it feels natural and Arthur relaxes a little. He’s just a normal boy, in his first year at university, having a conversation with a pretty girl outside a pub. This is exactly the kind of thing he’d hoped for when he left home in the first place.

“I’m Arthur,” he says, suddenly confident.

“Sophia,” the girl says, accepting his outstretched hand. “Nice to meet you. How do you say that in Spanish?”

“Er, mucho gusto?”

Sophia smiles.

“Mucho gusto, Arthur.”

They talk for another twenty minutes and she gives him her number when she leaves. Elyan slaps him on the back and congratulates him on his flirting skills, but Arthur’s not even sure what he did. Sophia carried most of the conversation, and she didn’t seem to mind at all when he ran out of things to say.

He wonders if she gave him her number out of pity, but when he texts her the next day, she replies almost instantly. They message back and forth for a while, and then she suggests they meet up for a coffee. Arthur’s horribly nervous, changing his shirt three times before leaving the house, and he almost backs out at the last minute. He’s convinced that in the harsh light of day, without alcohol to cloud her senses, she won’t want him anymore. He’ll bore her, or he’ll make things awkward, and she’ll decide he isn’t worth her time.

But she doesn’t. The conversation barely falters, and she asks to see him again at the end. Dinner, this time. Someplace quiet.

They go for that dinner and when he leaves her on her doorstep afterwards; she pulls him back and presses a feather-light kiss to his lips. He walks home in a daze, happiness swelling up inside him like a balloon. Sophia likes him, she actually likes him, and all he’s done so far is be himself. It’s a validation he didn’t even know he needed until that moment, but now it’s here he wants to cry with relief. He is enough, just as himself. He’s not falling short of anyone’s expectations anymore.

They see each other a lot after that. He’s sad that he can’t see her as much as he’d like to over Christmas; her home is up north and he has to spend almost all his time interning at Arkstone. But they talk every night and she seems genuinely interested in hearing about the work he’s doing. She does manage to come down for one weekend and it’s wonderful. They visit the Christmas market on the Southbank together, and he’s entranced by how pink her cheeks look in the cold, how bright her eyes are as they wander past the stalls and food vans. They drink mulled wine and eat stollen and sit by the river to watch the boats go by. Then Sophia brings him back to the house she lives in during term time and takes his clothes off piece by piece in her tiny little bedroom. She lies him down on the bed and climbs on top of him and he’s so overwhelmed that he can’t make a sound all the way through it.

He finishes too soon, he thinks, not that he has anything to compare it to, but she doesn’t seem to mind. She lies down next to him afterwards, head resting on his chest. She doesn’t say a word about his scar, but when she starts stroking it softly, he gets an unexpected lump in his throat.

“I-” he starts, and his voice cracks embarrassingly. “I really like you.”

She drops a kiss on his nose.

“I like you too. Very much.”

Arthur doesn’t recognise the feeling flooding his chest, but he thinks it might be peace. Contentment, after all this time, a sense that he’s finally where he’s supposed to be.

She makes scrambled eggs in the morning and sets off the fire alarm when she burns the toast and they laugh and laugh. When he puts her on the train that evening, he misses her the moment she’s out of his sight.

He doesn’t mention her to Uther. He wants something that’s just his own, and his father would only find a way to tarnish it somehow. He thinks his father suspects something is going on from the way he whistles and grins through all the drudge work he’s assigned at Arkstone. But Uther has no proof, and he can hardly accuse his son of being suspiciously happy. 

When term starts again, he and Sophia are officially in a relationship. Strangely, a lot of things about university become a lot easier. He doesn’t find it half as difficult to talk to people anymore. He and Elyan sit together in every class now, and he regularly goes to the pub with his course mates. He also joins the uni football team, and gets on well with the other lads there. But he still likes hanging out with Sophia best; even if he’s just watching her write lab reports, or she’s letting him practise his nouns and verbs with her.

He’s very happy and he hopes she is too. Sometimes he wonders about her; there are moments when she looks at him and there’s a shadow in her eyes. But she doesn’t mention her family much, except to say that she lives with her aunt, so he thinks there may be some pain there. He doesn’t push her about it though. He wants her to open up to him in her own time. And maybe he might be able to talk to her about his father too, someday.

Come Easter time, Sophia surprises him with the news that she’s going to stay in London for the break. She says she’ll study in the library while he’s at work, and then they can meet up after.

“And you can finally give me that tour of Arkstone you’ve been promising me.” 

“I don’t know why you want to go; you’ll be bored out of your mind.”

“Hey,” Sophia says, planting a kiss on the corner of his mouth. “I want to see where you work. I’m interested in the things you do.”

He feels a rush of warmth at her words.

“Next week,” he promises.

He picks a day when Uther’s away at the Manchester base, and he brings her in around lunchtime. He gets her a visitor pass and has a story all prepared if anyone asks, but no-one does. Gratifyingly, she really does seem to enjoy the tour, paying close attention to all the things Arthur shows her. It is an impressive building; Victorian architecture meeting clear glass offices and minimalist black furniture. He’s still buoyed by this success when she makes another suggestion a week later.

“You know what we should do? We should sneak in after dark someday. I bet that place looks awesome at night.”

“We couldn’t…” he says, and Sophia gives him a mischievous look.

“We could bring in some booze. Maybe have a little picnic. Then find a nice balcony somewhere and have some fun…”

“I don’t know,” he says, but he’s already caught up in the idea. Flitting around in the dark, illicitly breaking in under his father’s very nose. It’s a scary idea, but it’s exciting too.

The third time Sophia brings it up, he cracks. They arrange to go that very night, and Arthur clandestinely modifies his pass in the computer lab to give him night access. He leaves at his usual time and then he and Sophia drink in a bar around the corner, waiting until it’s past 3am and even the most diligent are sure to have gone home. Then they creep back towards the building and slip in the main entrance.

Arthur’s not an idiot, he knows they’ll probably get caught on CCTV and he’ll be in for a bollocking tomorrow from Uther. But he doesn’t care about that. He wants to live in the moment and damn the consequences.

Oddly enough the security guard seems to be asleep as they tiptoe by, which is a stroke of luck. He mentions it to Sophia and she only smiles and offers him a sip from her hip flask.

The alcohol is strong and bitter tasting and drowns the other thoughts in his head out. They steal past the labs and take the stairs to the currently disused eighth floor, where there’s a little abandoned office that Arthur occasionally escapes to for a minute of peace and quiet on busy days. It’s the perfect place for their little picnic.

Sophia was right; there is a certain thrill about being here after dark. So much so that Arthur starts to feel slightly heady with it, drunker than he felt only a few minutes ago. He nearly crashes into a door at one point and Sophia pulls him along.

They find the office at last and Arthur collapses into a chair.

“I need to eat something,” he says. He’s feeling very far gone all of a sudden.

Sophia sets her rucksack down but she doesn’t take any food out of it.

“One more drink first,” she says quietly.

“Seriously Soph, I’m hammered. I need to…”

“Drink a toast to me, Arthur,” she says, pressing the flask into his hand.

He grimaces and then relents.

“To Sophia. The most beautiful girl ever foolish enough to go out with me.”

He takes a gulp and it seems to hit him instantly.

“Wow. That thing packs a serious punch,” he says, slurring slightly.

“It’s supposed to,” she says, in that same quiet voice.

“Getting me drunk so you can have your wicked way with me?”

Arthur laughs and it sounds louder than it normally does.

“Something like that,” Sophia says.

“Better h-hope that security guard doesn’t come in.”

The room is spinning slightly now and Arthur shuts his eyes.

“He won’t. He’ll be out for at least another hour with the spell I put on him.”

“Yeah… wait, what?”

Arthur’s eyes snap open. Sophia’s looking at him very intently.

“I put a spell on him so that he wouldn’t see us come in.”

“What?” Arthur says, mouth dry. “You’re not… you can’t do spells.”

“I can,” she says, moving closer. “I have magic, Arthur.”

“Stop joking around.”

“I’m not.”

“Just-just…”

He starts to rise.

“Don’t get up.”

Her warning’s redundant. He can’t get up. He can’t really move at all.

“I-I’m too drunk. I can’t…”

His limbs are like lead. They won’t respond to his commands.

“Sophia, I think I d-drank too much.” 

It’s becoming harder to get the words out.

“It’s not the drink. It’s what I put in the drink,” she says, holding up the flask.

“Don’t… don’t joke…”

“I’m not joking,” she says. “Not about the magic, and not about this.”

Something in her tone gets through to him this time. Something about the way she’s standing, the way her gaze is boring into him, her eyes darker than he’s ever seen them before.

He panics. He bucks up desperately, trying to kick-start some motion, but he barely moves an inch. His arms dangle uselessly and his head’s beginning to loll on his chest. It’s getting harder to think clearly and he has to fight to speak again.

“S-Soph, why are… why…”

“Shh, it’s okay,” she says, reaching into the backpack. To Arthur’s horror she produces a roll of duct tape. He watches her bite off a piece, and tries to marshal his useless body into action as she approaches.

It does no good. She easily holds his head in place, sticking the tape over his mouth even as he slurringly begs her not to.

Once he’s gagged, she takes his right arm and duct tapes it to the armrest. She does the same with the left, and then she tapes his feet to the chair legs.

“The drug’ll wear off in a bit, and I need you nice and secure,” is the only comment she makes. 

Arthur loses track for a while after that. Thoughts slip away from him, there’s no coherency or through line. Flashes of Sophia appear; memories of the time they’ve spent together. But the pictures are slanted, and they dissolve when he tries to look more closely. 

He’s only dimly aware of the real thing in front of him, taking things out of her rucksack and arranging them on the desk. But the fog in his brain prevents him from processing what he can see.

After some time, he doesn’t know how long, he feels the urge to be sick. But the gag’s in the way and he convulses, terrified that he’s about to choke to death.

Sophia turns around to see him spasming. She grabs the bin and walks over to rip the tape off. Instantly he’s retching, leaning forward to vomit into the bin until it feels like he’s purged his whole stomach.

Sophia strokes his hair through it and that’s somehow more horrifying than anything else. When he’s finished she gets a bottle of water from her rucksack and feeds some to him.

“Poor baby. You’re over the worst of it now. You should start to feel better.”

She’s right that his senses are slowly coming back to him.

“Why are you doing this?” He gasps out the second she stops pouring water into his mouth.

Sophia puts the gag back on before she replies.

“I’m sorry about all of this Arthur, genuinely. You won’t believe it but it’s true. I never wanted it to come to this.” 

She grabs another chair and comes to sit in front of him.

“I’ll explain what I can before I have to go. I think you deserve that much. You see… I knew who you were before the night we met at the pub. I’d been following you since Fresher’s Week.”

Arthur shakes his head in disbelief.

“Do you believe in destiny, Arthur? I never have, but when I heard Uther Pendragon’s son was going to be attending my very own university, I knew it was fate. That you’d be the key to finally getting justice for my family.”

Her gaze drills into him.

“Your father killed my father, you know.”

Arthur makes a faint sound of protest behind the gag.

“Oh, not in the traditional sense. Nothing that could stand up in a court of law, nothing that your father could ever be held accountable for. But it’s true all the same. See, my dad was a scientist, and Arkstone doesn’t believe that Magicals should be scientists. They didn’t like his research into how magic could be used for the benefit of society. So they ran a smear campaign on him. Discredited him in a series of journal articles, got him thrown out of the Royal Society, blacklisted from the university circuit. All his other job offers dried up too. And no-one would publish his findings anymore.”

There are tears in her eyes but she brushes them away impatiently.

“His work was his whole life. And your father took that away from him. So my dad went out to the garage last spring and hung himself.”

Arthur’s stomach drops. He wants to deny what he’s hearing but he knows it’s all true. Arkstone do work to discredit Magical academics. There’s nothing about Sophia’s story that rings false.

“I’m sorry,” he tries to say but the gag won’t let the words through. Sophia seems to understand anyway.

“You being sorry isn’t enough. Do you know how many Magicals they’ve already done this to? How many more they’ll do it to? It has to end, Arthur. Someone has to take a stand.”

She gets to her feet.

“I’m not waiting around for things to change anymore. I’m making change happen. At ten am, when most of the Arkstone employees are at their desks, I’m setting this off. And then we’ll see if anyone starts listening.”

She gestures to the desk and he’s finally lucid enough to see what’s on it.

It’s a bomb. 

Instantly he starts thrashing around with what little movement has come back to him, trying to break free. It’s no use. The duct tape is tied too tight, and he’s still too weak.

He shakes his head at Sophia desperately.

“I know, I know,” she says quietly. “I didn’t want to do this. I don’t want to… hurt people. But this is the only way.” 

She looks over at the table.

“My dad… it’s like he’s haunting me. I can’t- I can’t live in a world where people are allowed to treat us like this and walk away unpunished. It makes no sense to me.” 

Arthur’s crying now, tears trickling down his face. Sophia turns to look at him and her face softens.

“I really do like you, you know. I wasn’t faking all of it. I expected you to be some awful spoiled brat, spouting anti-magic nonsense all over the place. But you’re… better than that. If there was a way to let you go, I would.” 

She gently thumbs a tear away from his eye, then her face shutters down.

“But there isn’t. I’m sorry Arthur.”

She picks up her rucksack and walks back around to the table. She fiddles with one of the wires protruding from the bomb and then steps away.

“It’s armed now. The best part is, I don’t need a detonator. I can set it off with a single spell from miles away.”

She gives him a sad little smile.

“Magic and chemistry combined. I don’t think my dad would have approved of me mixing them like this. But then… he’s not here anymore, is he?”

And with that she’s gone.

Arthur goes into shock. His skin goes clammy and his pulse starts to skitter. He continues to cry, helplessly, for quite a while. Then he’s too dehydrated to even produce any tears.

He tries to lick at the tape over his mouth, dislodge it with moisture so he can cry for help, but it’s stuck fast. He pulls at his bonds incessantly but they don’t give. They’ve been wrapped too tightly. He tries to move the chair and walk forward with it, but he only succeeds in tipping himself sideways onto the floor. 

He gives up, then. He carries on tugging exhaustedly at the tape, but in his heart he knows it’s all lost. Time is ticking away and no-one ever comes to this floor, let alone this office. They’ll never find him and he’ll never get out. He’s going to die today, and what’s worse is most of the staff will die with him. And it’ll be all his fault for bringing Sophia here in the first place.

He prays his father makes it out somehow. After all their differences, it suddenly seems like the most important thing in the world that his own stupidity doesn’t cost his father his life. He feels a sudden rush of love for the man who raised him. He’d been so ungrateful, so churlish. All his secret plans to run away the second his degree was up and leave his father behind. How could he have been so cruel?

Arthur lies there for a long time, listening to his heart thump in his ears, knowing that he only has a limited number of beats left. His bladder lets go but he hardly notices. Will it hurt, when it happens? Or this close to the bomb, will he simply be blown apart in an instant?

The clock on the wall says his time is almost up. Twenty five minutes. He shuts his eyes and thinks about his father, about the mother he never knew. He hopes somehow he might finally meet her.

Then. 

A knock at the door.

“Arthur?” A voice says. “I know you like to hide in here sometimes but your dad’s on the warpath. He’s noticed you’re not at your desk.”

Arthur tries to scream but the gag blocks it all and only a muffled whimper comes out. But thank God – _thank God_ – the door is swinging open.

It’s Leon, a member of the legal term, still in mid flow.

“I bought you a bit of time but you need to-”

He stops short, finally seeing Arthur on the floor. There’s only a moment of shock before he springs into action.

“Jesus Christ!”

He crouches down next to Arthur and begins pulling at the tape but it barely shifts. Leon gets a look of grim determination on his face and grabs a letter opener from the desk.

“Hold still.”

He gets Arthur’s arms free before he thinks to take the gag off and Arthur sucks in a huge breath of air.

“There’s a bomb. Leon, the table, there’s a bomb- she- she came and, it’s, it’s gonna go off at t-ten and we need to get everyone out, we need to-”

He can’t form any more words but he’s said enough.

Leon’s stood to look at the table and all the blood drains out of his face. Without a word he tosses the letter opener to Arthur and races from the room and towards the lift.

Arthur’s just managed to free himself fully when his father strides in.

“Are you alright?” He barks. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” Arthur says although he can’t quite get to his feet. He shuffles back instead, making way for a man called Aredian that he recognises from the lab.

A few more people spill into the room and Aredian curls his lip.

“Everybody stand back. I need space.”

They do as he says, until it’s just Arthur, Uther, Leon, and Aredian left inside, and the door slams shut. Aredian approaches the table and starts to inspect the device.

Four whole minutes tick by. Arthur counts them. There’s now twelve minutes left until the bomb detonates, assuming Sophia doesn’t try and set it off early.

After all the horror of the last few hours, the end is anti-climactic. Without so much as a word of warning, Aredian reaches into the body of the device and pulls a wire free, then another.

“Clear,” he says briefly.

Arthur can’t quite believe it.

“It’s disarmed?” He asks weakly.

“It was well made but in no way tamper-proof,” Aredian says dismissively. “They clearly weren’t expecting anyone to get to it in time. Whoever “they” are.”

Uther turns to look at Arthur on the floor.

“Who set that bomb, son?”

His tone is more gentle than Arthur’s heard it in a long time. He clearly thinks his son has been the victim of some terrible crime, forced to help a villain gain entrance to Arkstone and then left to die here.

For a moment Arthur wants to lie. To go along with the pretence that he’d been coerced against his will, that he’s an innocent bystander in this. But it’s futile. There’s CCTV footage of them coming in. Too many people know they were dating. He can’t pretend. 

So he tells the truth instead. Everything from the day he met Sophia to the moment she walked out of Arkstone just hours before. He can see his father’s face getting darker and darker the more he speaks, and he ends up mumbling his story to the floor, not daring to meet anyone’s eye.

When he finishes, there’s a long silence.

“Aredian, Leon, please go and wait in my office for me,” Uther says, in a tone devoid of emotion. “Tell the people outside that the crisis is averted and they should return to their desks for the time being.”

Arthur can’t help but glance up as the two men leave. Aredian’s look is full of cold disgust for Arthur, but Leon’s is pitying. He can’t tell which is worse.

The door clicks shut behind them.

“Get up,” his father says.

He manages to stand on shaky legs.

_Crack._

The slap to his face almost knocks him off his feet again but he just about stays upright.

There’s a moment’s pause and then his father hits him again, even harder. 

“You stupid boy. You stupid, stupid boy.”

He smacks him a third time and Arthur just takes it. He knows he’ll stand there and take it forever, because this is his life now, and he’ll always be doing penance for what happened here today. 

Uther raises his hand a fourth time and Arthur braces himself, his ears ringing. But his father pauses, lowers his hand. He gazes at Arthur instead, eyes like shards of ice.

“What you’ve done… it can never be undone. I will never look at you again without thinking that you nearly killed us all. Do you understand me?” 

Mute, Arthur nods. Uther stares at him like he doesn’t even know him.

The silence stretches on for minutes this time.

“You owe me,” Uther says finally, and his voice is like Arthur has never heard it before. “You owe all of us.”

Arthur feels like a great weight is bearing down on him.

“One day I will call in this debt. And I’d better find you ready.”

For a moment he can’t breathe. The words his father left unspoken linger in the air. Arthur can never screw up again. This is his first and last mistake. There can be no more.

  
  
  
  


He drops out of university the next day. Moves back into his father’s house and starts work full time at the company. Except the plans for Arthur to one day inherit Arkstone have turned to dust. Uther makes it clear that he’s not to be trusted anymore. The work he was doing before was fairly unimportant to begin with and now he’s been permanently demoted to delivery and errand boy. Never selected to perform any key tasks. Not privy to any important information. 

He gets back into his training regime, making sure he’s fighting fit and ready for anything in case he should be called on again. He doesn’t know if his father even notices. They live like ghosts in the house, rarely crossing paths, rarely speaking. 

He doesn’t think about university or his friends or the new life he was planning in a country far away. His life is about atonement now. He buries his indifference to the anti-Magical cause, makes sure that his only thoughts are doing exactly what the job requires of him. He reads the literature. He memorises the rhetoric. He agrees with every word that comes out of his father’s mouth.

The police never find Sophia. He thinks of her occasionally, wonders where she is. Perhaps she’s the one who made it to Peru in the end. Perhaps she’s the one finally living a life free of her father’s shadow.

Then he remembers that he’s not paid to think and he gets back to work.


	3. Chapter Two

Arthur yawns widely.

He stayed up late last night to watch a political documentary on the BBC, which was cleverly scheduled to tie in with the upcoming government vote. It was basically an account of political attitudes towards magic in post-war Britain that focused mainly on the outlooks of the Fellowship party and the Integrity party. Uther would have chided him for watching a show on the BBC, a news outlet apparently dripping with pro-Magical bias, but Arthur had found it fascinating. 

Historically, neither of the main two parties were known to support Magical advancement, but in the early nineties the Fellowship party selected Rowena Annis as their new leader, and she immediately set out a policy of support and protection for Magical citizens in the Fellowship manifesto. There was bitter opposition, from members of her own party and Integrity politicians alike, and some claimed it was this policy that prevented the Fellowship party from winning a popular election until 2007. But others argued that the times had simply caught up with Annis’ foresight, pointing to the shock landslide victory that she won in 2007, which was repeated with ease in 2012. It was only now, in her second term, that Annis had finally made a push for the idea she had first proposed nearly twenty years before: a bill to end compulsory microchipping of Magicals.

Unsurprisingly, the Integrity party was fully opposed. Unfortunately for Annis, despite having a clear majority in the House of Commons, some of her own party were unwilling to back the legislation. They claimed it was too soon, that it might alienate more moderate voters who preferred the gradual integration of Magicals into society. The smattering of other parties in the House of Commons divided down traditional lines – the right wingers opposing the bill and the left wingers largely backing it (with the exception of the right wing Libertarians who claimed microchips were a breach of individual freedoms). So it was that the current predictions for the vote were on a knife edge, with neither side looking to have much advantage. 

On a purely selfish level, Arthur is unhappy about this. If the vote was sure to go one way or the other, his father might stop badgering him and the rest of the staff to campaign better. Arthur’s been put on the deeply monotonous task of ringing past supporters of Arkstone to ask them to lobby their MP to vote no on the bill. Seven years with the company and this is the most responsibility he’s ever been entrusted with. He should be grateful for the step up from errand boy, but Arthur would honestly rather be out in the fresh air making deliveries than interacting with possibly the most tedious members of the public he’s ever encountered.

So when he gets called into his father’s office first thing Monday morning, he’s pretty sure he knows what the meeting’s going to be about. He’s not calling enough people, he’s not persuasive enough, his numbers are down compared to everyone else in the office. He assumes he’s in for yet another lecture about how he’s doing everything badly, as usual.

In the end, he’s both right and wrong. Uther does want to talk about the vote. But he doesn’t want to tell Arthur off.

“Ah come in, son, have a seat.”

It’s a warmer greeting than he’s received in a while and Arthur can’t help returning the rare smile his father is directing at him. Owain, one of the guys from the Arkstone surveillance department, is already sat down, and Gilli, Uther’s perpetually terrified assistant, is hovering in the background.

After sending Gilli to make coffee, Uther steeples his fingers under his chin and turns to Arthur. Arthur guiltily stops fiddling with the ring on his finger and rests his hands on his lap. The ring is his mother's, and Uther hates to be reminded of it.

“How are things on the fourth floor?”

“Good, good. I hope to make about forty more calls today.”

“Never mind all that now. I’ve decided we need to take a more active role in shaping the outcome of the upcoming vote.”

Arthur nods, trying to look keen for whatever menial task his father is no doubt about to assign to him.

“The Magicals have been tirelessly campaigning for this vote, and they’ve got their four little spies firmly ensconced in the House of Commons.”

There were currently four elected MPs with magic: Mordred Barrett, Morgause Prynne, Kara Hartley-Croft, and Julius Borden. Arthur had heard, on several occasions and in great detail, his father’s specific objections to each one of them.

“If they pass this thing, there’s nothing to stop them from trying for the Magical Protection Act next year.”

Annis had made no bones about her desire to pass an act that would introduce sweeping powers of protection to end legislative discrimination against Magicals in all areas of society. Arthur knows it’s Uther’s worst nightmare. The act would make the majority of Arkstone’s activities illegal; it would undoubtedly spell the end of the company. 

“We can’t let them get to that point. If the microchipping bill goes down in flames, they won’t even attempt to pass the protection act. That’s why we need to make a statement. Something that says we won’t let this country be blackmailed and bullied by a small pressure group of dangerous malcontents.”

“Right. So… a press release, or-”

Arthur wishes he hadn’t made such a feeble suggestion when he sees the faint glimmer of pity in Owain’s eyes. Uther exhales irritably.

“Something a bit bigger than that. Something a lot bigger, in fact.”

He pins Arthur with a look.

“And I want you to handle it for me.”

Arthur sits up a little straighter.

“Certainly,” he says. “Whatever you need.”

Uther gives him a thin smile.

“I’m glad to hear it, Arthur. Because what I need is for you to kidnap someone.”

Were it not for the fact that his father never, ever made jokes, Arthur would have assumed his leg was being pulled.

“What?” He asks, and cringes to hear his own incredulous tone.

Uther regards him coolly.

“Don’t be uncouth, Arthur; say ‘I beg your pardon.’ And I believe I was perfectly clear. I need you to overpower and restrain someone, then take them to the house on the Moors and hold them as a hostage for a few weeks.”

“Why?”

“To delay, or better yet, stop the vote.”

“How would the hostage be related to the vote?” Arthur asks weakly.

“Your target is a man with great influence within the Magical community. We’ll send an anonymous ransom note that clearly states to the Magicals – and anyone else who might care – that their little friend will die unless the vote is cancelled, or at the very least postponed.”

Arthur knows he’s far from the most intelligent person in the room but there seems to be a few holes in this plan. Uther’s looking at him forbiddingly, but he can’t help speaking up.

“What good will it do us if the vote is postponed or cancelled? Won’t they just reschedule it when we release the hostage?”

“By then we’ll have had time to set an alternative plan in motion, one that will bolster the No Campaign significantly enough to ensure the bill is voted down.”

“But won’t the hostage tell the truth? Unless…” Arthur breaks off to stare at his father. “You’re not going to tell me to kill him.”

Arthur can’t do that, he won’t do that. Surely his father would never go that far, not for the sake of a vote…

“Don’t be so melodramatic Arthur, of course I won’t. We’ve made alternative arrangements for ensuring the hostage’s silence; Owain will go through them with you in a minute.”

“Alright. It’s just…” Arthur hesitates, trying to avoid offense. “I don’t quite understand how this will achieve our aims.”

“We’ve worked out all the details, believe me,” Uther says dismissively. “This plan’s been a long time in the making.”

“But what if-”

“Arthur,” Uther cuts in, and the world weary tone is so familiar that Arthur cringes automatically. “Why don’t you let us worry about the big picture? Your part is to focus on the kidnapping.”

It’s not just the tone, it’s the look Uther accompanies it with, one that Arthur’s seen so many times before. The look that says ‘you’re embarrassing me.’ The look that says ‘you always embarrass me.’

“Right,” Arthur says.

Focus. That’s what he’s best at. He can’t deal with too many things at once; he’s most efficient when someone just tells him what to concentrate on.

 _Like a trained dog_ , a malicious little voice whispers inside him.

He should be happy, technically. His father’s calling the debt in, after all this time. This is Arthur’s chance to redeem himself. To finally be free of the guilt and shame of what he nearly caused all those years ago. 

He nods, makes a show of looking eager.

“So who’s the target?”

Owain picks up an envelope and shakes out several photos on to the table in front of Arthur, all of the same man.

“This is Merlin Emrys and he’s at the heart of everything.”

It’s a dramatic statement but looking at the photos, Arthur can’t help but feel a little underwhelmed. Merlin Emrys appears to be a lanky, badly dressed man in his early twenties with a crow’s nest of dark hair and a sharp, elfin face. He seems to only own one pair of jeans (black, skinny) and a variety of long sleeved t-shirts paired with brightly coloured scarves, and, bizarrely, fingerless gloves. All in all he resembles a third year drama student more than a “man of great influence.”

His doubts must show on his face because Uther leans over to jab his finger down on the table.

“Don’t let his appearance fool you. He’s the adviser to basically every influential Magical in British society. He’s been a behind the scenes agitator on every piece of policy that’s come out of the Institute in the last year and a half.”

The Institute was officially named the ‘Institute for the Protection and Promotion of Magical Persons’ but it had become prominent enough to be denoted by a single word moniker. It was the organising ground for essentially all magic related advocacy in the UK, and Arthur had been listening to Uther rant about it for as long as he can remember.

In an attempt to head off another Institute themed tirade at the pass, he quickly asks:

“So what’s his bio?”

“Twenty five years old. Born in Brighton to Hunith Emrys née Chatsworth and Balinor Emrys, a Magical who walked out on the family when Merlin was ten, since deceased. Microchipped at five as standard, attended local primary and secondary school. Brilliant GCSEs, average A-Levels, left school at eighteen. And that’s pretty much it until last year.”

Arthur frowns.

“What d’you mean that’s it? What about the six years in between?”

“We don’t know,” Uther says grimly. “Merlin Emrys’ microchip stopped transmitting three months after he received his A-Level results. It’s been dead since then.”

Arthur gapes.

“How is that possible?”

“It’s not possible. Not technically.”

The microchips couldn’t fail. That was the entire point. There’d been earlier prototypes that had malfunctioned, but the model that had been used for the last thirty years was flawless. There’d never been a single recorded incident of error. They were completely tamper proof too; any attempt to surgically remove them would set off an alert. There had been odd groups like the Mercia Collective who'd tried to use magic to deactivate them, but by all accounts it had proved impossible.

“You could have reported him to the police.”

“We could have,” Uther agrees. “But we decided he’d be more valuable to us if he didn’t know we were watching him. I had my suspicions that the information about his chip might come in handy one day.” 

“And you still don’t know why it’s dead?”

Owain takes over the narration at this point.

“No idea. We know his father had ties to the Mercia Collective, but we also know they disbanded before they accomplished anything. So nothing definitive. And we don’t know much more from this point on in general. Just bits and pieces. Emrys spent some time in America and Ireland; we think Japan and Norway as well. There are rumours he was involved in the Pittsburgh Riots in 2010 but it might just be hearsay. We’re almost certain he was in Washington around the time the Magical Surveillance Act was repealed, there’s video footage of someone looking a lot like him in the march on the Capitol.”

“So when did he come back on your radar?”

“Last June he arrived in London and was appointed to be Assistant for Magical Advancement at the Institute. We keep tabs on everyone at the Institute so I started a file on him right away and that’s when we realised about the missing years.”

Owain pushes a typed document across the table to Arthur.

“We’ve been watching him since then but there’s honestly not much to report, beyond the nitty gritty of his daily routine.”

He gestures to the printed map on the front page of what Arthur realises is his new cheat sheet.

“He lives in a one bed flat in Stoke Newington, gets the 76 bus to work, stops for coffee at the White Dragon Café next to Rectory Road station three or four times a week, and rarely leaves the house on weekends. He visits his mum in Brighton every few weeks, but he doesn’t seem to interact socially with anyone else. He’s got no online presence, his hard-drive is magically protected, and he thoroughly shreds all paperwork before throwing it out.”

Owain’s usually professional tone has given way to mild frustration and it almost makes Arthur want to laugh. This Emrys bloke had clearly been leading Owain’s team on a merry dance this past year.

“Owain’s team have done the legwork for you, I suggest you stake out the area for a few days so you can pick your time,” Uther interposes briskly and Arthur’s urge to laugh fades. Did his father think he couldn’t figure that out by himself?

“He tends to work late most days, and his flat is down a deserted side street,” Owain adds helpfully, like Arthur’s such a fucking idiot he might just stride up to Emrys in broad daylight and clonk him over the head.

Arthur bites back a sharp retort and instead nods at Owain. It’s not his fault that everyone at Arkstone thinks Arthur’s some kind of clueless moron. He hasn’t exactly done much to prove them wrong over the years.

“Right, hardware,” Owain says, turning business-like. “Here’s your ankle tag. Standard police issue magic suppressor, but with a few modifications from the boys in the lab. Not only will it cage his magic, it’ll make him untraceable by magical means. No amount of scrying spells’ll find him when you’ve locked this on.” 

“Useful,” Arthur comments. It looks like a chunky black bracelet, vaguely resembling the kind of thing people with ASBOs were ordered to wear.

“But that’s not the best part.”

Owain twirls it in his hand, like a door-to-door seller honing in on a sale.

“It’s got an inbuilt memory wipe. When you take this off, everything that’s happened from the moment you first put it on will be completely erased from the wearer’s consciousness. Knock him out when we’re done, take it off, and leave. He won’t be able to remember a thing that happened.”

Arthur blanches.

“That’s…” he pauses, picking his words carefully. “That sounds like magic.”

“Because it is,” Uther intones and Arthur looks at him in shock.

“Don’t look so dumbfounded Arthur, the labs have long taken advantage of the resources available to them. We may fight for the full elimination of magic, but we can also recognise times when winning that fight means using magic to our advantage.”

“But we can’t-”

“Arthur, I have to get back to the fifth floor in ten minutes, do you mind if we wrap this up? I’d be happy to answer any tech questions you have by email.”

Owain’s tone is polite but Arthur feels the rebuke in it anyway.

“I… right,” he says. “But, er, if he sees me before I get the device on?”

“You’ll be lying low anyway for a while once this job is done. In the unlikely event he remembers you, you’ll be out of the picture,” Uther says briskly. 

Then he favours Arthur with an odd look.

“I thought perhaps you could go and spend some time in South America. Brush up on your Spanish. That was your plan once, wasn’t it?”

The look on Uther’s face is almost indulgent and Arthur’s heart leaps slightly. The fact that his father’s even referring to his old degree – with a half-smile on his face no less – is unprecedented. Arthur reads the meaning behind it loud and clear. If he pulls this off, the slate’s wiped clean. He can finally be forgiven.

Not only forgiven, but released from his contract at Arkstone too. Free to finally try and make something of himself on his own terms. With his father’s blessing this time, rather than going behind his back. 

Arthur can’t quite believe it can be that simple.

“Won’t you need me here?”

“We’ll do without you for a year or two,” Uther says lazily. “Be good for you to expand your horizons a little.”

A year or two. It may as well be a lifetime from Uther’s perspective. His father’s never made such concessions before.

Arthur nods, suddenly elated, and turns his attention back to Owain.

“Lovely. Okay, so I’ll give you the device and the key that opens it.” 

Owen hands the items across the table.

“Make getting that on him your first priority,” Owain warns. “We have no current data on how powerful this guy is so you don’t want to take any chances.”

“However,” Uther says, “his original assessment put him at below average level. He might have learned a few new tricks on his travels, but I don’t foresee him being much of a threat.”

Owain takes out a little silver briefcase, opening it to reveal two syringes and a few medicine bottles.

“Sedatives in case you need to keep him quiet. We’ll be giving you a van to transport him in, it’s fully soundproofed. Take your med kit with you as well, better to be safe than sorry.”

Uther had trained Arthur always to have a full medical kit on hand, complete with disinfectant, painkillers of varying strength, and all the first aid basics – nestled alongside tools to stitch knife wounds or remove bullets.

The house in the Moors is already equipped with most of the other things he needs; handcuffs and rope and other essentials. This Emrys isn’t the first to be detained there, but it’ll be the first time Arthur will be in charge.

The thought makes him both proud and queasy. He’s waited seven years for his father to entrust him with something real, and now it’s finally happened and he’s nervous. What if something goes wrong? What if he screws it up? What if Emrys escapes, or overpowers him?

He decides to set those worries aside and concentrate on the next few days. He knows he’s good at this bit; good at surveillance and planning and learning a person’s routine. He’s not even that concerned about the actual kidnapping itself. He just has to focus and take it all one step at a time.

When Uther dismisses him there’s a vague air of ‘no time like the present’ in his father’s goodbye and so Arthur packs up his things and heads straight for the White Dragon Café, hoping tonight will be one of the days that Emrys chooses to come by. 

He puts on his reading glasses, opens up his laptop and learns the information he’s been given off by heart. It’s all fairly standard stuff; Emrys’ schooling, his political allegiances, any known romantic relationships. He’s skilled at information retention and it doesn’t take long for him to feel satisfied he’s committed all the details to memory, so he gets himself some coffee and a pastry and waits.

  
  
  
  
  


He’s so immersed in trying not to look conspicuous, only allowing himself to glance up from his seat facing the door every once in a while, that he nearly misses the moment Emrys actually comes in. It’s around half past seven and his eyes are tired from looking at his screen. He’s beginning to wonder how long he should stay before he calls it quits, when he realises there’s a man standing at the counter that wasn’t there a minute ago.

He scans the figure curiously. The back of his head isn’t much help, although the cut and colour of the hair seem about right. He’s got a coat on so Arthur can’t see if he’s wearing a long sleeved t-shirt or a scarf from this angle, but the black jeans seem familiar. Then he spots the fingerless gloves and his stomach jumps slightly.

It’s him.

As if the universe wanted to confirm Arthur’s suspicions, the man chooses that moment to turn round and look Arthur’s way.

  
  
  
  


The photographs didn’t really do him justice, is Arthur’s first thought. In person, Merlin Emrys is much less… shambolic looking. The clothes are still the same, the messy hair is the still the same, but somehow it works. The whole package fits together better. He seems taller, too, and he doesn’t look as painfully thin as in the pictures; he carries his leanness well in real life. In fact, if he wasn’t a Magical and a target, Arthur would almost think…

But he is a Magical and a target so Arthur banishes those thoughts before they can even begin to take root and drops his gaze back to his laptop. He thinks Emrys looks at him for a second longer, then he turns back to the counter and picks up his takeaway cup, leaving the café. 

Arthur takes a different tactic the next day and sits in the pub on the corner of Merlin’s street, knowing Merlin will have to walk this way from the 76 bus stop to his flat. Sure enough, he appears at about quarter to nine and Arthur watches him make his way to his building; noting where he keeps his keys, how long it takes him to get them out, how many times he has to turn the lock. Arthur hasn’t decided how to take him yet, but he thinks that late at night outside his flat is the best option. If he pulls the van up at just the right time…

It requires more thought. Arthur goes back to the café the next day, and is pleased to find he’s judged it right when Emrys shows up again at around half seven. Only this time, he asks to stay in with his coffee.

It’s a small café and there are only a few seats available, one of which is at the very next table to Arthur. Arthur quickly minimises any windows that might show any connection to Arkstone, then decides the whole laptop is too risky and shuts it down. Luckily he has a book in his pocket, a paperback he bought in Oxfam earlier, and he quickly picks it up and opens it. 

Sure enough, like it’s fate, Emrys chooses the table next to him.

Arthur tries to angle his book so he can subtly watch him over the top of it. Emrys settles into his seat with the ease of someone who’s been here many times before, placing his cup down on the table. He then rips open two packets of sugar and pours them in his coffee, causing Arthur to wince inwardly. Arthur never adds sugar to anything and he’s a firm believer that coffee doesn’t need it under any circumstances.

The next ten minutes or so are fairly quiet, with Emrys sipping his coffee and staring into space. But after a while he fishes a pen and notepad out of his pocket, before shucking his fingerless gloves off.

Arthur can’t help but stare a little. There are two very distinctive bird tattoos on the back of his hands. 

Arthur’s never really liked tattoos on other people before. He’s always felt that they marred the skin, that a lot of the designs were tacky, that people just got them to try and stand out from the crowd.

Emrys’ tattoos don’t make him feel like that. He’s drawn to them. The birds look… weirdly alive somehow, like they might suddenly take flight from his body. 

Emrys looks up and Arthur hastily returns to his book, embarrassed to have been so obviously caught out. His father would kill him if he knew he was making amateurish mistakes like that. He shakes his head, and packs up his things. It wouldn’t do good to linger any longer today; he’s made himself too conspicuous to the target.

He comes back the next day; aware that time is running out. Uther wants this done by the end of the week and there are only two days to go. He waits around in a bus stop across the street until he sees a familiar figure get off the 76. Arthur decides to cross the road and shadow him, just to double check which route he takes home.

They’re on Stoke Newington High Street when Emrys pauses to tie his shoelace. There’s no natural way Arthur can stop so he decides to keep walking, hoping Emrys will continue before he reaches him.

He’s within a few metres of him when Emrys finally straightens up.

He has to bite back a cry of shock when the man suddenly whirls round to face him.

“You’re following me,” he says bluntly. “Why?”

 _Shit._

Emrys is smarter than he looks. He opens his mouth to give some weak excuse and suddenly a much better idea pops into his head.

He lowers his gaze slightly, like he’s embarrassed, and then looks up at Emrys shyly.

“Sorry I just… I’m not very good at this but, erm… I’d love to go for a coffee with you some time.”

Emrys looks completely wrong-footed. He opens his mouth and then snaps it shut again.

“I didn’t mean to follow you,” Arthur says earnestly. “I saw you in the café a couple of times and I… I was just trying to work up the nerve to talk to you.”

“Oh, er, no, it’s fine. I just thought you were…” Emrys trails off. “Well, anyway.”

“Sorry about trailing behind you. I kept trying to catch up but you walk quite fast.” 

“Yeah… habit of mine,” Emrys says slowly, looking Arthur up and down.

“So, now that we are talking… do you fancy it?” Arthur tries to inject the right note of hope in his tone. 

He is hopeful actually. Getting Emrys in a situation where he trusts him, like on a date, would make kidnapping him a whole lot easier.

Emrys still looks faintly surprised, eyes assessing Arthur intently. Then, unexpectedly, his face crinkles into a smile.

“Sure, why not?”

Arthur mentally punches the air.

“Great! I’m Arthur, by the way.”

“Merlin.”

“That’s an unusual name,” Arthur says and then worries he might be overplaying it slightly.

Emrys doesn’t look suspicious, he just laughs.

“Tell me about it. I begged my mum to let me change it to Jamie or Tom or something. School was hell.”

Arthur smiles automatically but in his head he’s already making plans. They’ll have to meet in public, but if he offers Emrys a lift home after and he parks on some deserted street…

He realises Emrys is waiting for him to speak.

“I just had people singing the theme song from that cartoon Arthur at me,” he says quickly.

“I’m sorely tempted to launch into it now, but I’ll try and take the high road,” Emrys replies, dimpling at him. 

It makes Arthur forget what he was thinking about for a second.

“Well I’ll let you have a free pass on our date tomorrow,” he says, recovering himself.

“Tomorrow? Very presumptuous. How do you know I haven’t already got plans?”

“You’ll cancel them,” Arthur says, and flashes a smile that has Emrys rolling his eyes.

“Alright, but this better be worth it. I’m talking unforgettable first date here.”

 _Oh you have no idea,_ Arthur thinks.

  
  
  
  


He had to stop being so suspicious. Kara had told him, Freya had told him, even Edwin – who occasionally gave Nixon a run for his money in the paranoia stakes – had advised him to chill out.

“We’re not in the bad old days anymore, Merlin. We don’t have to look over our shoulder all the time. Christ, in one month’s time, we’ll hopefully be freer from surveillance than we’ve ever been. So can you stop acting like the Stasi’s about to break down your door in the middle of the night?”

Merlin can’t help it. He’d been on red alert for so long. Even though he knows the direction of the wind is finally changing, it feels fragile to him. Years of watching his back can’t be forgotten that quickly.

And yet, it would be nice to slow down a bit. Not to feel so hunted all the time. Things were moving forward; he has to keep telling himself that. And next month would be a huge step in the right direction if the bill passed. Maybe he could afford to ease up on the wariness.

He bears all this in mind when he whirls round to confront Hot but Creepy, and the guy stammers out his request for a date. 

It isn’t the first time he’s seen the guy around. Merlin initially noted him down as Hot the first time he saw him in the café, but it had changed to Hot but Creepy yesterday, when he sat next to him and the guy did nothing but stare the entire time. He probably thought he was being subtle, but Merlin’s instincts are honed to precision after all this time and he knows when someone’s keeping an eye on him. Still, he isn’t particularly worried about it until he notices the man tracking him from the bus stop. 

He’s on such high alert, body already pulsing with adrenaline, ready to fight or flee, that the man’s request only sets him off further. Merlin’s mind races with all the possibilities; _he’s a journalist who wants to do an exposé on me, he’s a government spy looking for information, he’s a magic hater who wants to get me alone and stab me to death_. He’s about to spit out a firm refusal, then a sudden image of Freya flits into his mind, and the sympathetic look she gave him last time they spoke.

_“Oh, Merlin. I know you’ve got the weight of the world on your shoulders, but try to have a little fun sometimes.”_

One of the best looking men he’s ever seen close up is standing in front of him, blushingly trying to hit on him, and Merlin’s got him pegged for some mastermind saboteur. 

Maybe he should take everyone’s advice and just relax a little.

He mumbles something out, trying to retract the harshness of his opening statement. Hot but Creepy (who should possibly just revert to his original name of Hot now in the interest of giving him a chance) asks again and Merlin takes a minute to look him up and down.

What harm could one little date do? If he’s a journo or a spy, all Merlin has to do is not talk about anything magic-related. And if he’s a crazy man with a knife, Merlin’s more than equipped to blast him into the back of beyond. 

“Sure, why not?” He says and can’t help but be flattered by how pleased the guy looks.

They exchange introductions and he – Arthur – makes the customary comment on Merlin’s name. He seems to be getting less shy by the second, which is probably a good thing, Merlin likes a bit of confidence. In fact Arthur is downright cocky when he confirms the details of the date, and Merlin hates to admit it turns him on a little. He’s always had a thing for slightly arrogant guys, mainly because he likes putting them in their place.

When Arthur hands over his phone number, their fingers brush and it sends the tiniest tingle down Merlin’s arm. This is a good idea. He deserves to cut loose for once in his life.

He finds himself curiously excited the next day as he goes about his work. Edwin comments on how cheerful he looks, and Merlin just smiles. Later when they practise healing spells in the rec room, Merlin finds he’s doing much better than he normally does. He knits together the gash on the practice dummy’s arm in no time, and barely even leaves a scar. Edwin lets out a low whistle when he examines it.

“Really nice work Merlin, that was a deep cut too. Weren’t you only telling me last week that healing was your weakest area?”

“It is,” Merlin says, grinning broadly. “Today it just feels a bit… easier.”

Edwin studies him for a second and then nods, pleased.

“It’s because you’re in a good mood. I know you think it’s a load of hokum, but there’s a reason I’m always telling you about the importance of bodily balance when it comes to magic. We all perform better when we’re happier, when we’re not stressed, when we’re eating well and taking care of ourselves.”

He claps his hand on Merlin’s shoulder.

“You’re always so tense, so worried about what’s going to happen. It’s nice to see you looking a bit more relaxed. You’ll find your magic flows a lot better when you centre yourself.”

Merlin rolls his eyes, good naturedly.

“Yeah alright, shut up Edwin, I get it,” Edwin says. “You think you’re ready to try a broken bone?”

Merlin nods. Today he feels ready for anything.

 

He leaves work early for once, much to the exaggerated shock of Freya on the reception desk, who claims she hasn’t seen Merlin leave the building before six since someone pulled the fire alarm in December. Merlin just gives her a kiss on the cheek and promises to call her over the weekend.

“Yeah, and you can tell me all about who’s making you smile like that!” She shouts after him, happily. “Don’t think I’m not onto you, Emrys!” 

He grins all the way home and when he gets back he heads straight to the shower. He’s meeting Arthur at half seven at a Vietnamese place in Shoreditch; he’d never been but he’d googled it and it didn’t seem too fancy or pretentious. He can tell from Arthur’s accent that he’s quite posh, and he was scared he’d find himself at some Michelin starred restaurant where the waiters would give him three separate forks and sneer at his tattoos. He just wants a nice, chilled out evening.

When he gets out the shower he dabs on a bit of the cologne that Gwaine gave him as a parting gift, the one he tends never to use because it makes him too nostalgic. But tonight the sharp citrus fragrance only makes him think of the night ahead, and he feels a slight flutter in his stomach.

The excitement isn’t just down to Arthur. It’s a part of it – Arthur’s very attractive and Merlin is definitely looking forward to getting to know him – but it’s more about what the date represents. Merlin’s twenty five years old and he’s never been on a date in his life. He’s had dalliances with people; short flings on his travels, most of them only lasting the one or two nights he stayed in a particular town or city. His encounters have often been intense, charged by the knowledge that he’d be gone again tomorrow and the risk that he was taking by letting anyone get close to him. There’s been no opportunity to just take his time with someone, get to know them slowly. Up until recently, he’d discounted the possibility that he could ever be in a relationship with anybody. The cost seemed too great, the risk of the truth about his chip being discovered, about his powers…

It’s only been in the last year at the Institute – where he’s finally felt stable enough to explore his magic and banish some of the demons he’s been carrying around – that the possibility of love could even be considered. And Merlin found that he wanted it. More than that, he ached for it. But the residual fears wouldn’t go away and he found himself delaying, making excuses as to why he couldn’t put himself out there just yet.

The proposed vote changed things. Firstly in the obvious sense: if the microchips are banned then he won’t live in fear of discovery anymore. But also in an intangible sense, a feeling that attitudes were changing, that after all this time Britain was becoming the kind of place that might respect his right to live after all; one that might even welcome him.

He might be able to live a normal life.

Not too normal, he’s never been interested in convention, and a house in the suburbs with a white picket fence and 2.4 kids has never appealed to him. He still wants to travel, to go off the beaten track, to experiment with his magic in ways that push against what’s been done before.

But a little normal. Normal enough to breathe freely when he walks down a crowded street, normal enough to trust the friends he makes and people he meets, normal enough to find happiness in his own peace of mind.

Normal enough to go on a date with a good looking guy and have nothing more to worry about than whether he’ll get food stuck in his teeth.

Suddenly slightly giddy, he sticks his tongue out at himself in the mirror. He would pretend to be that person tonight, pretend to have no cares in the world, and maybe someday soon it might actually come true.

He pads into his bedroom and rifles through his wardrobe, trying to decide what to wear. He’d bought some new jeans a few months ago but had yet to wear them much, they were slightly tighter than what he usually went for. Freya had dragged him out shopping and insisted he buy them, claiming they’d be perfect for when he went out on the pull. She knew full well he never did that but perhaps she could see the future better than he could; they did look perfect for tonight. He puts them on the bed and then picks out a blue button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up. It seems about the right mix between smart and casual, and he likes the way it shows off his tattoos. He’s almost sure Arthur was gawping at the ones on his hands the other day. 

He doesn’t want to admit to himself that he’s making more of a fuss than he ever normally would about an outfit until he opens his underwear drawer. The fact that he pauses before drawing out a pair of navy boxer briefs is a sign he can’t ignore.

He’s wondering if Arthur’s going to see him undressed tonight.

Even the thought of it sends a little tingle through him and he’s immediately embarrassed. He’s not a blushing schoolboy and Arthur won’t be the first person to ever see him naked should it come to that tonight. And yet…

He wants to live like other twenty somethings do. To be casual about sex, to go out drinking and dancing, to take people home when and if he feels like it. He’s never allowed himself to live in the moment before.

Merlin decides that if Arthur wants to take him home tonight, he’ll let him. He puts on the nice underwear, and the tight jeans, and the pressed shirt, and leaves the house.

 

Arthur’s already there when Merlin arrives and he stands up, so formal that Merlin wonders if he’s going to pull his chair out for him. He’s just as good looking as Merlin remembers, dressed in a black shirt with his hair artfully mussed. They exchange a slightly awkward hello and for a moment Merlin wonders if they’ll actually have anything to say to each other. But then he shrugs his jacket off to rest it on the chair behind him and Arthur suddenly exhales.

“What?”

“Nothing, I just… I like your tattoos.”

He’s not just saying it to be polite, Merlin can see he genuinely means it. His eyes are fixed on the leaves that wind their way up Merlin’s forearms, like he’s fascinated by them. Merlin’s flattered, he always takes it as a compliment to Elena’s workmanship, and makes a mental note to email her and tell her she helped him impress some guy on a date.

Arthur meets his eyes and smiles and Merlin realises that he wants to impress Arthur, very much.

Luckily the tattoos help him break the ice. He tells the (edited) story of how he got them, and then explains the merlin birds as well and Arthur listens with genuine interest. The talk moves seamlessly onto other things; horror films, 80s fashion, the difficulty of eating with chopsticks. Merlin’s careful never to mention work, or touch upon anything politics or magic related, but Arthur seems happy to let him steer the conversation. He doesn’t ask Merlin any prying questions about himself, which Merlin appreciates more than he can say. He doesn’t even talk about his own job beyond mentioning he works for a delivery service, and Merlin doesn’t ask too many personal questions, in case Arthur feels he has to return the favour.

They mainly stick to light topics and it end up being more fun than Merlin’s had in a long time. Arthur’s a good laugh. A lot of his jokes are sarcasm based, but he has a nice line in self-deprecating humour too. He’s clearly pretty sharp, although he refers to himself as stupid a couple of times – which Merlin assumes is just a light joke at his own expense. Arthur must know he has a lot going for him but he doesn’t seem to show it. Merlin’s known men as stereotypically handsome as Arthur before and they sometimes come with an unpleasant layer of self-regard, but Arthur seems weirdly humble. 

Unless he’s just putting it on to make Merlin warm to him. Which is fair enough, it’s not like Merlin’s being completely honest on his end either. He hopes Arthur isn’t though. He likes the man in front of him, likes what he’s been shown so far. He hopes it’s the truth.

At one point Arthur reaches out to touch his hand, just to emphasise some point, and he gives the bird tattoo a brief stroke. Merlin feels a little jolt fly through him when Arthur’s skin meets his.

“So, do you have any more? Like, anywhere else on your body?” Arthur’s tone is suggestive and Merlin finds himself unconsciously lowering his voice when he replies.

“Maybe.”

“And when do I get to see them?”

Merlin smiles sweetly.

“When I say so.”

“Oh, it’s like that, is it?” Arthur’s eyes are sparkling. “I have to earn it?”

“Exactly,” Merlin says, taking a nonchalant sip of his wine.

“So how am I doing so far?”

“Mm, not bad,” Merlin says. “Good conversation, good choice of restaurant, good shirt…”

Arthur laughs.

“You like my shirt?”

“It’s pretty good. I like mine better,” Merlin says shamelessly and Arthur laughs again.

Now that Merlin thinks about it, he might be slightly tipsy. He doesn’t tend to get drunk much, too afraid of what secrets might pop out, but he’s had three glasses of wine and apparently that’s all it takes these days. He excuses himself to go to the bathroom and splashes a bit of cold water on his face in an attempt to sober up. He’s been doing well so far, he doesn’t need to get a case of loose lips syndrome now. 

When he comes back Arthur’s picked up the bill.

“It’s not a negotiation Merlin, the person who invites is the one who pays,” Arthur says, waving away Merlin’s attempts to offer up his entire wallet.

“Yeah but I can’t just-”

“Merlin,” Arthur says. “You can pay for the next date, okay?”

Merlin opens his mouth to protest further and then it dawns on him.

“Next date?”

“Yeah. If you want.”

Merlin licks his lips slightly.

“Yes. I do.”

He feels that same giddy rush he felt standing in front of the mirror at home, like something new is starting and it’s scary but it’s exciting too.

Then they’re in the street and Merlin’s figuring out his best way home, and whether he should lean in and kiss Arthur before they part, when Arthur says:

“Can I give you a lift home?”

  
  
  
  


The date goes well. Possibly too well.

Arthur had spent the day getting everything ready. He phones his father to tell him about the new plan and experiences a rare glow of pride when Uther praises his quick thinking. He goes to H & M and buys several cheap t-shirts in what look like Merlin’s size, plus two pairs of jogging bottoms, some socks and underwear and a hoodie. Food he can get up in the Moors but he doesn’t trust he’ll be able to find clothes there and Merlin will need a few changes over the weeks. He also remembers from his last visit that the television picks up no signal but does have an attached DVD player, so he loads up on box sets that he’s been meaning to watch. He’s going to have a lot of free time once he’s up there. On that note he reluctantly packs some books his father’s been badgering him to read, all of which have names like ‘Understanding the Magical Threat’ and ‘Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing: A Concise History of Magical Crimes Against Humanity.’

Then finally he secures the briefcase with the sedatives in the back of the van, and sets up a little makeshift bed to transport Merlin on. He stows away ties for Merlin’s arms and feet, strips of cloth to blindfold and gag him with, and a spare pair of handcuffs for when they get to the house.

Most importantly he’s got the ankle bracelet in his inside coat pocket, securely zipped in. 

He’s so prepared for everything else that he forgets to think about what the date might actually be like, and he ends up having to play it by ear. He hasn’t been on a date in years, and he’s completely forgotten how this particular dance goes. It’s vital that Merlin likes him enough to accept his offer of a lift home, so Arthur decides his best bet is to be attentive and interested in what Merlin says. Surely that’s all anyone wants on a date, isn’t it? Someone treating them like the things they say have worth, have meaning.

He’s ready to fake it, but oddly enough, he doesn’t need to. The second he spies the tattoos snaking across Merlin’s forearms, he’s genuinely curious about where Merlin got them. And then the story behind them is interesting, and then they move onto other things, and somehow he finds that being attentive and interested in what Merlin says requires no effort at all.

It’s a little too easy. Once or twice he finds himself genuinely flirting, not just putting it on. He doesn’t need the little voice in his head to tell him why that’s a Very Bad Idea; he can figure it out for himself. He tries to reign it in, but he can’t quite help himself. Merlin is… good company.

He gets a hold of himself when Merlin goes to the bathroom and quickly takes care of the bill. It’s time to get this over with. Merlin makes a bit of a fuss when he comes back and so Arthur says the first thing he can think of, which is that Merlin can pay on the next date.

The smile that spreads across Merlin’s face is slightly painful to look at. He tries not to think about it as he ushers Merlin onto the street and says his big line.

“Can I give you a lift home?”

Merlin doesn’t answer right away and Arthur can feel sweat prickling on the back of his neck.

“If it’s not out of your way,” Merlin says flirtatiously and Arthur breathes an inner sigh of relief.

“Not at all. I’m in the van; it’s just a few streets this way.”

Merlin seems slightly tipsy as they cut down a side street and Arthur wonders if he doesn’t drink very often. He keeps brushing up against Arthur, and it doesn’t seem accidental.

Arthur supposes he should be grateful Merlin’s all over him; it would have been hell talking him into a lift if the date had gone badly. But grateful is not quite what he feels.

Merlin’s chattering on about something or other and Arthur’s happy to let him carry the conversation as he goes over the plan in his head. It’s not until they’re turning onto the street where Arthur’s van is parked that it happens. Merlin starts to go the wrong way and Arthur tugs him back but he overbalances slightly and ends up almost falling against Arthur’s chest. Arthur reaches out to straighten him up and Merlin looks at him. There’s a second of stillness and then Merlin leans in to press his lips to Arthur’s.

After a moment of shock, Arthur decides the best course of action is to return the kiss. No point arousing Merlin’s suspicions this close to his goal. He moves against Merlin’s mouth and the other man deepens the kiss, bringing a hand up to run through Arthur’s hair. He takes a step forward, pressing the line of his body against Arthur, chest to chest. Arthur’s hands come round automatically to settle on his hips.

  
  
  
  
  


It’s… strange. Arthur hasn’t been kissed like that in a long time. He tends to take care of his sexual needs in a fairly perfunctory way. Every few months he goes to a club and picks someone up. The encounters only last a night and he never goes home with the same person twice. 

Uther always said that relationships were a distraction from what was important.

Merlin’s lips are as soft and plump as a girl’s. But the body pressed up against Arthur’s feels very male; all hard planes and wiry strength. The contrast is interesting, and Arthur finds himself mourning a little when Merlin finally pulls back.

“Maybe when we get back to my place,” he says, voice slightly husky. “You could come in for a bit.”

“I’d like that,” Arthur says, still feeling the warmth on his lips from where Merlin had been.

Merlin slips his hand into Arthur’s.

“So where’s this van then?”

Arthur mutely nods up the road, where the van is waiting. When they draw level with it, Merlin makes for the passenger seat.

“Wait a second,” Arthur says hoarsely. “I wanna show you something in the back.”

Merlin’s eyebrows waggle.

“Is that a euphemism?”

Arthur’s returning smile is slightly tense but Merlin doesn’t seem to notice.

“No, it’s something cool, come check it out.”

Merlin obediently follows him round to the back of the truck. Arthur unlocks the padlock on the chain holding the two doors together, and pulls it free. He flings them open, surreptitiously coiling the chain in his hand.

“What are all those blankets for?” Merlin says curiously, gesturing towards the little nest in the middle of the truck.

 _To keep you in place while I’m driving_ , Arthur thinks. 

“You never know when you might need to sleep in your van,” he says offhandedly and Merlin grins.

“Look at you, Mr. Rough and Ready.” 

Arthur winds the chain around his fist; the other hand patting his jacket pocket to make sure the device is ready and waiting. He knows he only has a small window of time. He won’t be hitting Merlin hard enough to knock him out, there’s too much risk of permanent damage, so he needs to get the device round his ankle before Merlin recovers enough to use his magic.

“So where’s this thing?”

Arthur points to the back, shifting himself to stand a little behind Merlin.

“I can’t see it.”

“Right hand corner,” Arthur says.

Merlin leans in a little further. 

Arthur brings the chain down on the back of his head.

Merlin slumps forward and Arthur springs into action. He kneels down and pulls Merlin’s trouser leg up, clamping the device firmly around his ankle. The second it’s locked into place he lets out a sigh of relief, and climbs into the van.

He pulls Merlin’s prone form fully into the back so he can close the doors behind him. He flicks the overhead light on and grabs the silver briefcase from the corner. Then he crawls over to Merlin and turns him on his back, pulling his jacket off and taking hold of his left arm.

Merlin’s moaning quietly, either from the knock on the head or the sudden loss of his magic, Arthur doesn’t know. He gets a strap from the case and ties it tightly around Merlin’s upper arm, waiting for a vein to present itself. 

Up close the skin on Merlin’s arm is very pale, almost translucent. The intricate lines of the tattoo make it hard to see where the veins are. He writhes a little, trying to pull back from Arthur’s grip, but he’s clearly too weak. 

His eyelids are fluttering rapidly and Arthur watches him, wondering how it feels. He’s heard Magicals talk about being cut off from their magic before, in an item on Newsnight. They described it as like losing a limb, or suddenly going blind. They said it hurt in some primal, instinctual way.

 _Good_ , Uther had said. And switched the TV off.

Somehow Arthur doesn’t quite like to think of that now. He distracts himself by slipping the phone from Merlin’s pocket and crushing it to pieces with the briefcase, so it can’t be used to track them. He confiscates Merlin’s wallet too, and his house keys, and removes his shoes. Then he waits as long as he can stand before settling for the most prominent vein he can see, which isn’t very prominent at all. Still, he swabs Merlin’s arm with a disinfectant wipe and then injects a sedative into him. It should keep him quiet for the duration of the journey. But to be on the safe side, Arthur binds his hands and feet, then blindfolds and gags him for good measure. He makes sure he’s settled securely on the blankets, the roads get bumpy where they’re going and it wouldn’t do if Merlin got flung into the van wall and cracked his head open.

Then he climbs into the front and starts to drive.


	4. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for use of restraints

It takes about five hours to reach his destination, and the sun is just coming up as Arthur glimpses the little house on the horizon. 

He loves the drive to the Moors house more than anything. The scenery he passes must be some of the most dramatic and beautiful in the world. It’s not the lush rolling hills he likes, or the lakes and rivers, or the clusters of trees standing like proud sentinels against the sky. He likes what the Moors are famous for in literature; their wildness. There are parts of the landscape that seem untameable somehow, huge and bleak and brutally stunning. There are places he’s walked here that feel like no-one on earth has ever been there before. He feels more like himself on those walks than any other time in his life. He likes being at the mercy of nature, likes being a tiny part of something huge and powerful. It’s intoxicating.

The house stands alone against the sky, nothing around it for miles. It’s the first time Arthur’s ever come here without his father and he delights in the idea that he can go on all the hikes he wants this time, that’s he’s free to explore the environment in his own time without any telling him how pointless it was.

He leaves Merlin locked in the van while he goes to open up the house and make sure everything’s in place. First, he turns the heating and hot water on, then he heads straight for the stairs to the cellar where Merlin will be kept. 

It’s a non-descript space; stone floors, an old patio table with three rickety chairs surrounding it, a worn down sofa behind the stairs, and a door on the back wall leading off to a small toilet and sink.

The main feature in the room is the cell.

Uther had bought the Yorkshire base when Arthur was nine years old, and it had been a calculated purchase. He picked a house far enough away from other people to ensure total privacy, but close enough to a local town to buy food and supplies. The terrain leading up to the house was rough, making it difficult for many vehicles to traverse, so people mostly stayed away. Most importantly, they were surrounded by empty land on all sides; so the upstairs window provided a vantage point to spy people coming from miles around.

Almost as soon as the sale was completed, Uther had the cell built. A set of sturdy steel bars blocked off half of the room, with a built in door that bore two reinforced locks. The only thing inside the cell was a single bed. A pair of handcuffs hung from the metal bed frame, one end locked around the frame and the other dangling open. 

The cell had been put to various uses over the years, though Arthur isn’t always privy to the details. Uther used to take him on ‘holiday’ here when he was younger, but it was only an excuse to make Arthur practise shooting and survival skills away from the prying eyes of city dwellers. 

He spent a night in the cell once when he was twelve, so he could ‘learn what it felt like.’ It was a lesson that stayed with him. He remembers waking up in the middle of night, the room so pitch black he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. He’d cried, quietly and hopelessly, struck by the idea that his father might never come back, might leave him here forever.

Arthur’s ashamed to remember that now. Twelve was far too old to act like such a baby.

He shakes his head to clear the memory away and runs his eyes over the room, making sure everything’s in place. It’s cold in the cellar but there are a couple of radiators lining the walls, it’ll warm up soon enough. 

Confident that all was in place, he heads back upstairs and out to the van. He unlocks the back doors cautiously, like Merlin might have roused himself enough in the last five minutes to launch an attack. But Merlin’s still lying where he left him, trussed up and sightless. Arthur climbs into the back and lifts him out, slinging him over his shoulders. He’s not light, but he weighs less than most adult men and Arthur barely breaks a sweat as he manoeuvres him into the house and down the stairs. This, at least, he’s good for. Anything requiring brute strength, he never fails at. 

He thinks Merlin might be moaning slightly but it’s difficult to tell behind the gag. He gets him into the cell and lays him down on the bed, before pulling the material out of his mouth. 

Merlin lets out a tiny groan but it doesn’t seem like he’s fully conscious. Arthur pulls the blindfold off and sees that Merlin’s eyes are slightly open and flickering, but he clearly isn’t properly aware. Arthur takes the opportunity to untie his hands and feet, then locks his right wrist to the handcuffs on the bed frame. He checks the ankle tag to make sure it’s fully secure, and then he retreats from the cell. He’s been up all night and he’s exhausted, but he’ll need to check on Merlin in a couple of hours to make sure the sedative has fully worn off. He decides to take a power nap on the couch, setting his phone alarm for two hours’ time.

He’s woken by the sound of shouting.

  
  
  
  


Merlin feels strange. A bit like he’s hungover, which makes sense given he remembers drinking. It was wine, he’s almost sure, but he wasn’t in his flat. He was out. Out with…

Arthur.

Merlin frowns, eyes still shut. He was on a date with Arthur. And he’d gotten drunk and Arthur had taken him home.

He doesn’t remember getting home, though. But he must have because he’s lying on his bed, and the air is certainly as cold as it normally is in his flat.

His right hand is trapped in an awkward position and he tries to pull it back towards his body. But it snags on something.

Frowning, eyes still shut, he tries again.

It’s stuck somehow, like there’s something looped around it. Like…

His eyes fly open.

It takes him a minute to process what he’s seeing; eyes travelling slowly from the handcuff around his wrist to the steel bars in front of him.

Then he panics.

He jerks his hand away but there’s no give in the cuff, no matter how hard he pulls. 

Remembering himself, he mutters a spell to release the cuff.

Nothing happens.

He tries again, forcing himself to speak slower. His magic sometimes stalls in stressful situations.

Still nothing.

He tries once more and then wonders if the spell is the problem. Has he forgotten the right words?

He tries another spell, one of the simplest he knows, one to turn the lights off.

The lights stay on.

Frantic, his eyes sweep down his body. Then he sees the black bracelet wrapped around his ankle.

He’s been trained to recognise one of those since he was five years old. It’s a magic suppressor. 

  
  
  
  
  


 

For a moment he is completely still, frozen with fear. After a few seconds he forces himself to sit up, ignoring the nausea the motion causes. He touches the tag with his free hand, feels the hard metal, and for some reason it’s that that sets him off hyperventilating. He brings his knees up to his chest, breath coming in short pants, a rush of blood in his ears. He thinks for a moment he might vomit, or pass out, but he does neither, just rocks back and forth in place, gasping for air.

For a moment he’s sure that he’ll have a heart attack but there’s a voice in his head that sounds a lot like Edwin’s telling him to calm down and just think.

It’s that voice that kick-starts the memories of his training. One of the first classes he took after hours at the Institute was on hostile situations and how to survive them. They were all encouraged to attend. It happened too often to Magicals to be ignored.

The voice tells him to assess the situation rationally.

_What do you know so far?_

He’s in a cell. He’s been restrained. His magic is gone. He doesn’t know how long he’s been out for and there are no windows he can see to tell the time of day. The pain in the back of his head indicates he was probably hit there, but the residual fogginess speaks to being drugged rather than concussed. 

Kidnapped, then. Planned. Someone who knew he was a Magical. 

But who? A terrorist group like the AMA or ThinkBritain? An opportunist looking for a ransom? A loner with a grudge against magic?

None of the options are palatable. He supposes the ransom would be best, except there’s no one who could pay it for him.

If it’s any of the other options, he’s in big trouble. The thought makes him panic again, bile rising in his throat. He forces himself to calm down, to evaluate the probabilities.

ThinkBritain have never actually killed anyone to his knowledge. They bomb magical targets but only when there are no people around. They’re a violent pressure group but they’re not usually murderous.

The AMA did kill a lot of Magicals in the seventies and eighties but they seemed to have largely disbanded. It’s unlikely to be them, though not impossible.

A loner with a grudge… they would have no political aims. Nothing to gain from ransoming him. They might want nothing more than to simply torture and kill him.

Merlin swallows a sob. It isn’t supposed to end like this. He’d been so careful, and the outlook had seemed so much better recently. He’d been beginning to hope at last. 

And now he’s locked up in a basement at the mercy of someone who hated him for something he’d been born with, something as natural as the colour of his hair.

The thought makes him angry and he tries to cling on to that. Better angry than scared. Anger keeps you going, keeps you fighting. Fear does nothing.

He casts his eyes around the room, taking in the table and chairs, the sofa in the corner. There’s nothing obvious that can help him right now, not when he’s handcuffed to the bed. It looks like there’s something heaped on the sofa but he can’t really see what it is from this angle; the stairs are blocking his view. He ducks down slightly to get a better look, and freezes. 

There’s someone stretched out on the couch. A man by the looks of it, though Merlin can only really see his legs. A hysterical voice in his head says it could be a body but he listens for a second and hears the faint sound of steady breathing.

Asleep, then. 

This has to be the man who kidnapped him.

Very slowly, very carefully, he moves as far back on the bed as the cuff will allow and then cranes his neck till he can just about look past the stairs to see…

Arthur.

The bottom drops out of Merlin’s world. 

_Arthur. Arthur asked him out. Arthur paid for his dinner and offered him a lift home. Arthur walked him to his van. Arthur…_

Arthur hit him and restrained him and brought him here.

The shock is overwhelming. Merlin feels like his whole body is rebelling against the truth. Every fibre of him is straining to prove that there’s been some mistake, any mistake…

But it makes perfect sense. Isn’t this exactly what Merlin had feared all along? The very thing he’d told himself he was paranoid for even considering? 

_You should have trusted your instincts. You should never have gone out with him in the first place. If you’d thought more about common sense and less about your pathetic loneliness…_

Merlin cuts the voice off. He doesn’t have time for regret right now. He needs to figure out who Arthur’s working for and what they want.

_Unless he’s the loner with the grudge._

Merlin suspects not. The whole set-up seems too well orchestrated. Magic suppressors aren’t exactly easy to come by, and the fact that he’s in a purpose built cell suggests he isn’t the first person to be kept here.

Does Arthur do this all the time? Is Merlin the latest in a long line of suckers who fell for the prospect of a date and signed their own death warrant?

 _Death warrant_. Is Arthur going to kill him?

Logic says no. If he’d wanted to, he’d have already done it by now, while Merlin was unconscious and defenceless.

It doesn’t mean he won’t kill him later though.

A shudder wracks Merlin’s body; he picks up the blanket on the bed to wrap it around him and then drops it a second later. He shouldn’t be touching anything in this place. He doesn’t want Arthur waking up to see him huddled in a blanket like some pathetic infant.

Arthur obviously already saw him as pathetic though, if he worked the whole date scam on him. It’d be less insulting if Arthur had beaten him up in a dark alley and dragged him into his van at gunpoint. But instead Arthur had mocked him. Asked him out, paid for his dinner, flirted with him even. All the while inwardly laughing at the Magical stupid enough to let his guard down around the first guy that pays him a compliment.

Suddenly, he’s furious.

He begins to shout Arthur’s name. Loudly.

After a few seconds, the legs on the couch jerk. Then Arthur’s sitting up, shaking his head as though he can’t figure out where the noise is coming from.

Merlin can pinpoint the exact moment he remembers, and his head shoots up to look at the cell.

Merlin tries to inject as much menace into his voice as possible, although it’s difficult to feel menacing when he’s chained to a bed.

“What the _fuck_ am I doing here?”

Arthur gets to his feet, slowly, and walks towards the cell.

It’s surreal, he’s still wearing the same black shirt that Merlin complimented him on God knows how many hours ago, and now he’s a totally different person.

Merlin sits up as straight as he can, refusing to be intimidated.

“You heard me _Arthur_ , if that is your real fucking name. Why am I here?”

Arthur’s reached the cell now and he stops in front of it, face impassive.

It’s eerie and Merlin finds himself wondering if Arthur really is just a very well organised loner with a grudge after all. 

He hides his fear with rage.

“God-fucking-dammit, why am I here?!”

Arthur tilts his head to look right at him and he says…

“Do you need to use the bathroom?”

Merlin can’t even speak for a moment.

“What?” He asks at last.

“You’ve been out for nearly eight hours now and you drank a lot of wine at the restaurant.”

_Nearly eight hours…_

They could be anywhere by now. They could be in another country. 

Merlin ignores Arthur’s ridiculous aside.

“Where am I? Who are you working for? What do you want from me?”

He reminds himself not to mention the Institute or to give up any other personal details, clearly the cat’s out of the bag about his magic, but he doesn’t know what else Arthur is aware of.

“We can talk about all that after you go to the bathroom, if you want,” Arthur says evenly and Merlin nearly explodes.

“For fuck’s sake! Stop asking about the fucking bathroom and tell me why I’m here!”

It’s at this point he realises that he needs to use the bathroom.

Like hell he’s saying anything now.

Arthur turns and picks up a chair, putting it down so he’s sitting in front of the cell.

“My name really is Arthur. You’re in a house in the North York Moors. I work for a company that gave me the job of kidnapping you in the hopes of postponing the vote on the microchipping bill next month.”

He pauses.

“I think that was all of your questions.”

“I don’t believe you,” Merlin says.

Arthur shrugs.

“It’s true.”

“If it’s true, then why would you just tell me all this? Aren’t you worried I’ll-”

Merlin stops short, realisation dawning on him.

“I’m not going to get the chance to tell anyone, am I? I’m going to die here.”

The words feel heavy in his mouth but he spits them out anyway, wanting to hear the truth.

Unexpectedly, Arthur blanches.

“You’re not going to die, that’s not… look, I can’t tell you why, it’s just…” he stops, composes himself. “You’ll be free in a few weeks.”

Merlin studies him, trying to judge if he’s being honest.

“What company do you work for?”

“That’s enough questions,” Arthur says, standing up and moving the chair back. “I will bring you meals three times a day. You will ask me if you need to use the bathroom and I will escort you over there.”

He points to the door in the near wall.

“I will take the handcuffs off now, but I will keep your hands tied whenever you’re in the cell.”

“Why?” Merlin bites out. “Think I can bend metal bars, do you?”

Arthur continues as though he hadn’t been interrupted. 

“I’ll untie them for meals and bathroom visits. You may request another blanket if you need one.”

The whole thing’s rattled off like an introduction to the weirdest hotel of all time, right down to Arthur’s bizarrely formal tone. Merlin feels totally discombobulated. He wonders if Arthur’s trying to lure him into a false sense of security.

In the classes at the Institute, they were warned that kidnappers might want to torture them for information, or hurt them for personal amusement. 

The thought scares him but it honestly makes more sense to Merlin than the way Arthur’s behaving now.

“Is all that clear?”

Merlin doesn’t mean to ask the question, it just pops out.

“Why me?”

There’s a short silence.

“I said no more questions,” Arthur finally replies. “I’m about to go out and buy some food for the house. This is your last chance if you need to use the bathroom.”

Merlin wants to refuse but his body protests.

“Fine,” he spits out.

Arthur unlocks the cell and then walks over to undo the cuff. He pauses as he’s about to fit the key in.

“You’re probably thinking about running but I wouldn’t bother. The sedative’s still in your system and you’ll never make it out the door. Even if you did, it’s all moors for miles round here, you wouldn’t stand a chance.”

Merlin looks up at Arthur mutinously. But he knows how to be tactical so he does nothing when Arthur takes the cuff off, just allows himself to be led out of the cell and into the bathroom.

Outside it, Arthur fixes him with a look.

“I’ll let you close the door but only because there’s no lock. Please do not try and barricade yourself in there, or I will remove it from its hinges.”

He’s clearly done his hostage-proofing because Merlin finds there’s absolutely nothing in the toilet that’s not nailed to the floor, except the bar of soap. He debates throwing it at Arthur’s head, or maybe trying to rub suds in his eyes, but it doesn’t seem like the greatest of plans. He’ll have to rely on his fall back: speed.

He relieves himself quickly and leaves the tap running after washing his hands, hoping it sounds like he’s still soaping up or something. Then he takes a deep breath and hurls himself out of the door, making a desperate break towards the stairs.

Arthur catches him before he’s even gone three paces. 

“No, let me go!” He shouts, but he’s weakened from being unconscious so long and Arthur’s grip is much stronger than he could have imagined.

Arthur drags him back to the cell and throws him down on the bed. Before he can recover enough to get up, Arthur’s out of the cell and locking the door behind him.

Merlin runs to the door of the cell, because at least he’s not handcuffed to anything this time, and he rattles the bars.

“You can’t fucking keep me here!” He all but screams.

Arthur doesn’t even reply, walking back up the stairs, away from him.

His silence seems to say that yes, he can keep him here, and there’s nothing Merlin can do about it.

  
  
  
  


Now that the first escape attempt is over, Arthur hopes Merlin might settle down a bit. But the next crisis comes when he brings lunch down barely two hours later.

It’s a ham sandwich, but Merlin looks at it like Arthur’s offering him a dead slug.

“Something wrong?” Arthur asks sarcastically.

“I’m a vegetarian.”

“I don’t care.”

Merlin’s mouth sets in a hard line.

“I’m not eating it.”

“Don’t eat then,” Arthur says, irrationally annoyed. Did Merlin think he was on holiday at Disneyland? He should be too scared to speak to Arthur; not squaring up to him over the slightest issue. 

Arthur puts the plate down on the bed.

“You’re not getting anything else,” he says brusquely. “Your choice.”

Then he leaves.

When he comes back with dinner a few hours later, the sandwich is untouched. Arthur’s made chicken and rice, deliberately mixing the sauce in so that it can’t be separated. He won’t capitulate to Merlin’s demands, it sets a bad precedent. Merlin will eat when he’s hungry enough. 

But Merlin doesn’t touch it. He moves both plates to the corner of the cell and then curls up on the bed. 

Arthur can do stalemate. God knows half of his life with Uther has been spent in some kind of intractable, unspoken stand-off. But he doesn’t know Merlin well enough to decide if he can wait him out, or if Merlin will simply continue to refuse. He doesn’t think Uther will be very impressed if Merlin starves to death on his watch.

He debates with himself for a long time, the stubborn part of him not wanting to give in. Then he remembers the animal rights sticker on Merlin’s wallet, and the Greenpeace t-shirt he’d been wearing in one of Owain’s photos, and the cat he’d talked about wanting to own at dinner. 

It’s probably not a power play. There’s no doubt that Merlin is trying to test his limits, but it’s coming from a genuine place. Arthur could dig his heels in too and continue to serve him meat, but what would be the point? If Merlin responded in kind, he really might stop eating and get ill, and then where would Arthur be?

Unhappily, Arthur goes to the kitchen and makes two pieces of toast. He doesn’t put any spread on them though; he’s not feeling that generous. He shoves them into the cell without ceremony and Merlin doesn’t move. But when Arthur comes back to collect the plates, the toast is gone. 

The first night passes fairly uneventfully after that, other than the fact that Merlin lets loose a stream of invective every time he sees Arthur. Honestly, Arthur’s vaguely impressed with the amount of swear words Merlin knows, not to mention the combinations he comes up with. Merlin also peppers him with questions about the company he works for but Arthur doesn’t answer any of them.

He presents Merlin with a toothbrush and toothpaste at about 11 o’clock, and supervises him brushing his teeth. Merlin is totally incredulous that (a) it’s a task that requires supervision and (b) that Arthur takes them away again afterwards.

“What am I gonna do, bristle you to death? Give you a toothpaste moustache?”

Arthur says nothing, steering Merlin back to the cell with an iron grip on his shoulder. He follows him in this time, holding a piece of rope.

“What’s that for?” Merlin asks, eyeing it apprehensively.

“I told you your hands would be tied while you were in the cell. I let you have today off but it starts now,” Arthur says impassively.

“No. I won’t be able to sleep.”

“It’s either this or I’ll handcuff you back to the bed frame,” Arthur says evenly.

Merlin glares. There’s a loaded pause and then Arthur grabs Merlin’s wrist, dragging him back to where the cuff still dangles.

“Okay!” Merlin says quickly. “Okay.”

He holds out his hands and Arthur binds them together with the rope, making it a bit tighter than he needs to because he’s tired and frustrated and it’s only been one day, for God’s sake.

He leaves without saying anything else, snapping the light off without warning behind him. It occurs to him that Merlin might have wanted to take his jeans off before going to bed but he’ll have to just figure it out with tied hands. Plus, Arthur taking them off for him would have been awkward as hell.

He’s exhausted but he doesn’t sleep well that night. He’s still bleary eyed in the morning when he brings Merlin toast and a bottle of water for breakfast (he’s buttered the toast this time, not that Merlin will appreciate the generosity). Merlin makes a truly terrible attempt to slip past him while he’s unlocking the door but he easily blocks him. He leaves his hands tied as a punishment and lets Merlin figure out by himself how to eat his breakfast. He has to head into town anyway; he wants to see if the word is out about the kidnapping. He texted Uther while he was buying food yesterday to say everything was going to plan and Uther responded that they’d be sending the note within the hour, so he presumes people know by now. He’s fairly certain his father will be giving an anonymous tip off to the media too, just in case the Institute tries to keep it secret.

He drives to the nearest place he thinks will have a café with Wi-Fi, which is about half an hour away. Once there he tucks himself into a discreet corner in the coffee shop chain he finds, making sure his laptop screen can’t be seen by anyone but him. Then he heads to Google, typing in Merlin’s name only to be immediately inundated by pages of articles.

Word’s out, then.

He relaxes a few articles in, reassured that the police have no leads he needs to worry about. The only facts they really seem to have are the approximate time of the kidnap, and the contents of the note. Most of the articles focus on background information about Emrys and the upcoming vote. The rest of the space is dedicated to speculation on the responsible party, which Arthur idly flicks through. Seumas Milne in the Guardian suggests the fascist Anti-Magic Army may be responsible, but it’s not a popular theory as comments on the article point out they’ve been inactive for too long. More credence is given to Amelia Gentleman’s suggestion in the same paper that the terrorist cell ThinkBritain might be behind the kidnap; although she acknowledges that kidnapping isn’t their normal MO. Meanwhile, the header in the Daily Mail claims the whole thing has been orchestrated by pro-magical groups to garner sympathy for the cause; while The Times editorial urges parliament to go ahead with the vote and not kowtow to invisible agitators.

As uninformed as he is about politics ( _“You’ve got no brains for current affairs at all, have you son?”_ ), Arthur can see from the reporting that opinion is very clearly divided on party political lines. It’s certainly prompted a great deal of debate, but he can’t help but wonder if it’s the kind of discussion helpful to Uther’s cause. There seems to be a very strong feeling that the government should not be swayed on delaying or calling off the vote. 

He’s thankful that there’s no mention of Arkstone in most of the articles; Uther was sure the police might call round to investigate at some point, but he was equally sure that they’d find nothing linking Arkstone to the kidnapping.

A video of the police press conference catches his eye and he slips his headphones in and watches as a representative from the Met appeals for any information. He’s about to exit the screen when suddenly the camera zooms in on a middle aged woman sat on the podium, with wispy brown hair and soft, sad eyes. The caption on the screen reads Hunith Emrys and Arthur realises she’s Merlin’s mother a split second before she begins to speak.

Her speech is brief, she pleads for anyone who knows anything to come forward. She’s holding it together well until she falters and looks up from her written statement. 

“I just want my baby back,” she says, voice cracking, and then begins to cry. 

Arthur shuts his laptop quickly.

  
  
  
  


When he gets back he gives Merlin his lunch, a hastily made cheese and pickle sandwich. Merlin eyes it with distaste.

“Am I ever going to eat hot food again?”

“Oh I am sorry, I’ll have the butler bring you down some coq au vin,” Arthur snipes, despite the fact that he promised himself he wouldn’t get brought down to Merlin’s level. “Anything else, your highness?” 

“A shower wouldn’t go amiss,” Merlin says defiantly.

Arthur opens his mouth to say no and then stops to consider. It had been nearly two days already and Merlin was still in the clothes he was wearing on their ‘date.’ Arthur had been meaning to give him some new ones anyway, but there was no point putting clean clothes on a dirty body.

“Alright,” he says. “But try anything funny and I will make you regret it.”

Merlin doesn’t deign to respond.

Arthur leaves Merlin to his sandwich and goes up to the bedroom to grab a pair of jogging bottoms and a plain blue t-shirt from the drawer, plus a pair of boxer briefs and some thick blue socks. 

He hangs the clothes up next to a fresh towel on the rack and quickly checks that there’s nothing in the bathroom that Merlin could use as a weapon. But the shampoo and shower gel are both miniature size, and the only other item is a pink loofah. Arthur decides that if Merlin can overpower him with a loofah, he probably deserves to be free.

The only problematic element is the window. It doesn’t look big enough to support an escape attempt but Merlin is ridiculously thin and Arthur knows all too well that desperation can aid near-impossible stunts. There’s nothing for it, he’ll have to stay in the room with him. 

Satisfied, he returns to the basement and unlocks the cell, before leading Merlin up the stairs by his tied hands. He doesn’t untie them until they’re in the bathroom with the door shut. There’s no lock, unfortunately, but Merlin couldn’t get past him anyway. 

Merlin stands expectantly after his wrists are free, waiting for Arthur to go.

“I’m not leaving,” Arthur clarifies after an awkward few moments. 

Merlin looks vaguely outraged, as though Arthur had just admitted to being an enthusiastic voyeur who liked nothing better than to monitor people’s bathing activities.

“Don’t flatter yourself. I’m staying so you don’t bolt through the window.”

“I thought it was all moors for miles round here, and I wouldn’t stand a chance?” Merlin shoots back.

“Yeah, but I’d be the one who has to drag your frostbitten body back here and that’s a hassle I don’t need.” 

Merlin narrows his eyes.

“I’m not taking my clothes off in front of you.”

 _Not the vibe I was getting from you two days ago_ , Arthur thinks, and manages to bite that one back. If there was a handbook for Kidnapper/Hostage relations, comments like that would probably be under the chapter heading ‘Completely Inappropriate.’

“I’ll face the wall,” Arthur says flatly, turning his body so he can still see the window, but isn’t looking directly at Merlin.

“Not good enough,” Merlin says stubbornly.

“Then don’t shower,” Arthur replies. No skin off his nose.

There’s a brief pause.

Then a huffing sound and, in his peripheral vision, Arthur can see Merlin start shedding his clothes. Ten seconds later, there’s a thud as he climbs into the shower and the water starts running.

Arthur can’t see him, not really. And he’s not going to turn around and look. But he can’t help being very _aware_ of what he can see. A vague impression of pale skin and exposed flesh. He blames the steam slowly filling up the room for the slight heated feeling he gets.

He lets Merlin have nearly ten minutes in the shower, a luxurious amount by any hostage’s standards, before he tells him to finish up. To his surprise Merlin complies instantly, groping for the towel before climbing out. Arthur lets him have his privacy to towel off, only turning around when Merlin’s finished pulling up the jogging bottoms.

But Merlin’s still bare chested and Arthur has to stifle a gasp.

He didn’t know if Merlin was just being coy at dinner when he said he had more tattoos. But apparently it was true. The area from his collarbones to the middle of his chest is dominated by a huge design. Arthur’s no expert but it looks vaguely Celtic to him, a complex assortment of circles within circles, inked with unerring precision. It draws the eye, undeniably dramatic against Merlin’s pale skin. The entire effect is striking, almost overwhelming. 

He blames the tattoo for what happens next. He’s not properly focused, and when Merlin drops the t-shirt in his hand, Arthur automatically leans down to grab it. That’s when Merlin takes his chance. He pushes Arthur with enough force to knock him on his back, off balance from bending over, and then he wrenches the door open and runs out onto the landing. 

Arthur’s back on his feet within a few seconds, anger at Merlin and irritation at himself warring within as he gives chase. Merlin’s already halfway down the stairs and Arthur pounds after him, reaching the curve in the banister just in time to see Merlin throwing himself at the door. But Arthur’s no rookie, the key’s securely in his pocket. Merlin clearly realises the futility because before Arthur makes it off the final step he’s running through the kitchen and to the big French doors. He shakes them desperately but they won’t give. Arthur’s stopped running now, he’s close enough that he can just stride over and wrap both arms around Merlin’s torso from behind, pulling him bodily away from the door.

“Now that,” he says, putting his lips right up to Merlin’s ear, “wasn’t very clever.”

Merlin bucks desperately.

“Get off me! Get the fuck off me!”

  
  
  
  
  


Arthur ignores his struggles, manhandling him back to the basement door and then down the steps. Merlin thrashes all the way but he’s not strong enough to dislodge Arthur. Arthur’s holding him so tightly he can feel Merlin’s pulse thrumming through his body, the warmth of his bare skin. His wet hair smells sharply of the grapefruit shampoo Arthur had left out. 

He drags Merlin all the way to the cell and opens it one handed before shoving him inside. He follows him in, intent on handcuffing his hand back to the bed to indicate his disapproval. But Merlin shies away from his approach, hands coming up to protect his face, clearly expecting to be hit.

It makes Arthur feel a little queasy, though he’s not quite sure why. He probably should hit Merlin. Uther would. His father would say it was important to show Merlin who was the boss after doing something like that. That Magicals only understand one thing, and that’s the language of violence.

His father’s probably right but Arthur can’t do it. He’s mad enough to tie Merlin up, even to leave him shivering without a t-shirt for a bit, but he doesn’t want to hit a defenceless person. It doesn’t sit well with him.

He reaches out to take Merlin’s arm instead, ignoring the pronounced flinch he receives in return, and walks him over to the bed, pushing him to sit down. 

“Wrist,” he says, and Merlin hesitates.

“I am not in the mood,” Arthur says dangerously, and Merlin sticks his wrist out and allows Arthur to cuff it to the bed frame.

Merlin looks up apprehensively when he’s done, like Arthur might have been waiting till he was secured to lay into him. It makes Arthur irrationally angry. What kind of person does Merlin think he is, that he’d beat up a restrained man? If he ever raises his fists to someone, it’ll be in a fair fight. He’s got his honour.

He nearly says as much, and then he realises Merlin has no cause to think anything like that about him. He’s just the guy who asked him out on false pretences and then kidnapped him. Nothing particularly honourable about that. 

He backs away instead, banging the cell door shut behind him in irritation. He’s annoyed at Merlin for trying to get away and annoyed that he was afraid of Arthur afterwards, and most of all he’s annoyed that he’s even bothered by either of these things. Merlin is a hostage. The relationship should be completely impersonal. He shouldn’t have the slightest interest in how Merlin reacts to him. The day he cares what a Magical thinks is the day he makes Uther a very disappointed father indeed.

He goes upstairs and watches a couple of films, resolving to spend more time ignoring the man in the basement. When he comes back down with dinner, Merlin’s wrapped the blanket around his bare chest, and he’s shivering slightly. His hair’s still damp and Arthur realises the cellar air is probably too cold to dry it. He hardens his heart. Hostages don’t need to be comfortable.

“Dinner,” he says curtly, letting himself in and placing the tray on the bed next to Merlin. Merlin drops the blanket and leans over to pick up the tray but the angle’s all wrong with his cuffed hand. The tray wobbles precariously and Arthur steps forward, righting it before digging the key out of his pocket and un-cuffing Merlin.

“I don’t want to clean up any mess you make,” he mutters defensively, lest Merlin think this was an act of kindness. But he can’t really justify the fact that he goes upstairs to fetch Merlin a new t-shirt, and grabs a hoodie while he’s at it. He throws them in when he comes to collect the tray and deliberately doesn’t catch Merlin’s eye. He does retie his hands in front of him after Merlin’s fully dressed however; he’s not prepared to be that forgiving.

They don’t talk for the rest of the night.


	5. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for violence, verbal sexual harassment, and a brief incident of non-con touching.

Arthur gets up early the next morning and goes for a hike to clear his head. He never expected this was going to be easy, but Merlin’s gotten well and truly under his skin after only three days. He dreads to think what the next few weeks are going to be like. 

He only walks a few miles but it’s enough to ease some of the tension that’s been building up inside of him. He loves walking in this area, loves the fact that he can go for hours without seeing a single other person. When Arthur was little he used to fantasise about waking up one day and being the last person left alive in the world. Free to do whatever he wanted, with no-one around to put pressure on him. Nowadays, a walk on the Moors is the closest he gets to his fantasy coming true.

  
  
  
  
  


He can’t stay out for long, sadly. Uther wants photographic proof that Merlin’s alive to send to the Institute so Arthur drives into town when he’s done and buys a newspaper. He deliberates over the choice; it feels a bit weird to buy one with news of Merlin’s kidnapping on the cover, so instead he goes with the Independent and its spread on Syria. 

He stops by the supermarket as well and finds himself lingering in the vegetarian section. He’s not familiar with many of the products there, but he thinks he’s seen Quorn advertised on TV so he picks up a couple of packets of mince and ‘chicken style pieces,’ whatever those are.

When he gets back to the basement, Merlin’s doing some kind of stretching exercise on the ground. He jumps to his feet when Arthur comes in, eying him suspiciously. 

“Photo of you with the paper,” Arthur says briefly. He doesn’t give Merlin a chance to object, unlocking the cell door and grabbing onto the rope between his wrists to pull him out.

He takes a chair with one hand and moves it in front of the blank back wall, where there are no distinguishing features. This photo will no doubt be analysed to death by the police, and Arthur’s going to make sure they have nothing to go on.

It’s a slightly tricky manoeuvre getting Merlin situated properly. Arthur needs to untie his hands to retie them behind the back of the chair, but he can’t trust that Merlin isn’t going to bolt again. He’s getting a little sick of chasing him down.

He pushes Merlin to sit down in the chair and then levels him with a look.

“I’m gonna untie your hands and then retie them round the back of the chair. If you cooperate, I will start making you some proper cooked dinners. If you don’t, you’ll be getting bread and butter for every meal from now on.”

Merlin looks at him askance.

“Are you threatening me with bread and butter?” He asks, slightly incredulous.

It doesn’t exactly sound impressive put like that.

“I could threaten you with a broken nose instead,” Arthur snaps, and regrets it when Merlin cringes back a little.

“Look, just… just sit still and this’ll be done in a minute.”

He pulls the rope from Merlin’s wrists and walks briskly round the back to pull his arms taut again.

Merlin doesn’t run.

It’s a small victory, slightly undermined by the fact that he can’t quite get the newspaper to balance properly on Merlin’s lap. He fiddles with it for nearly a minute and when he looks up, Merlin’s smirking.

“Having trouble?”

Arthur maintains a dignified silence. 

He eventually manages to get the paper propped up, then he takes out his camera.

Merlin raises his chin, expression defiant, and Arthur hesitates. Merlin looking proud and unruffled is not the image his father wants to relay to the Institute.

He thinks Merlin catches on because the smirk comes back.

“I hope you weren’t expecting me to cry,” he says mockingly.

Arthur steels himself.

“Like your mum cried at the police press conference yesterday?” He asks and Merlin’s face falls. 

Arthur snaps the picture instantly, ignoring the clench in his gut. It was a cruel thing to say but he didn’t have a choice. If he’d sent the defiant one, Uther would have only told him to beat Merlin until the photo looked right or something.

His rationalisations don’t really ease his conscience much. Especially since Merlin’s glaring up at him with an equal combination of rage and misery in his eyes.

Arthur makes sure to take a tight grip on his arm when he unties him, sensing that all previous compromises on escaping might be null and void now.

When he’s safely locked him back in the cell, he pauses. Merlin’s retreated to sit on the bed, his head in his hands. 

“You’ll see her again in a month,” he says gruffly.

It’s as much of a concession as he can make.

But he still feels bad enough about it later that he makes a real effort to cook a decent meal with the Quorn. He makes spaghetti bolognaise, and it looks alright, though it’s hard to tell what it’s actually supposed to taste like. 

Merlin casts him a look when he brings it down.

“I can’t eat meat, I told you.”

“It’s not meat, it’s Quorn,” Arthur says, feeling strangely pleased with himself.

Merlin looks at it warily, like he thinks he’s being tricked.

“You bought Quorn for me?”

Arthur starts to nod and then turns it into a head shake, not wanting Merlin to latch onto any kind of upper hand.

“No. I always eat Quorn.”

“Really?”

“It’s an excellent source of low fat protein,” he says loftily, and then cringes internally. Merlin looks almost amused in spite of himself.

“Right, then.”

Arthur unties Merlin’s hands and then retreats to the table as usual to wait for him to finish. He only lets him have plastic cutlery and paper plates, but he still takes them away at the end. It’s a bit like being airport security, anything that could possibly be used as a weapon, however ridiculous, has to be monitored. He even bought an electric shaver that he’s allowing Merlin to use under supervision. An actual razor would obviously be out of the question. 

He admits the toothbrush is not quite in the same league. But he did see a prison movie once where someone sharpened the end of one into a shank, so it is possible…

Merlin finishes the entire meal which is either a testament to Arthur’s cooking, or a testament to the fact that he was really sick of sandwiches.

As Arthur’s picking up the plate to take away, Merlin suddenly speaks, like he’s been holding it in for a while.

“Were you lying earlier? About my mum?”

Arthur doesn’t know what to say. But the damage has already been done, there’s no point in backtracking now.

“No,” he says briefly.

Merlin glares at him.

“Why should I believe you?”

Arthur shrugs.

“Don’t, then.”

Merlin mumbles something.

“What was that?”

Merlin meets his gaze head on. 

“I said, I bet your mum’s ashamed of you.”

Arthur’s whole body tenses up, and he forces himself to unclench.

“Probably,” he says. 

And then he leaves the cell.

  
  
  
  


The next few days pass agonisingly slowly. Merlin’s still utterly furious about being kidnapped, and never stops looking for opportunities to escape, but in the meantime…

He’s bored. So incredibly bored. He’s literally sat in one room all day and there’s nothing to do. The only breaks in the monotony are Arthur bringing down his meals or taking him to the bathroom. He gets another shower – although Arthur plants himself in front of the door this time to make sure he can’t run again – but other than that he never leaves the basement. 

It’s unbelievably tedious. Arthur never sticks around in between meals, so he can’t even entertain himself by spewing abuse at him. 

He tries to do some of Edwin’s breathing exercises, to balance himself, but he finds it a bit pointless. They’re supposed to help him focus his magic, and he doesn’t have any access to that right now. It’s like psyching himself up for a marathon and then looking down to realise he has no shoes on. There’s nowhere for the energy to go. 

The lack of magic is utterly unsettling in itself. He’s sure it hurt when the tag first went on, but he was mostly unconscious at that point. It doesn’t hurt now but he can feel it, all the time. Little prickles under his skin, almost like pins and needles. It’s constant, and disquieting. And his ankle itches like crazy. It’s hard for him to scratch with his hands tied but he can’t help trying to rub it on the edge of the bed to get some friction. It’s hopeless and the itch persists. Yet another reason he could do with something to distract him.

And yet with nothing available, most of his time ends up dedicated to unpleasant thoughts. Arthur’s little aside about his mother didn’t exactly help. Arthur could have been lying but it’s not an implausible story. Wherever she is, his mum could only be hurting right now.

First her husband leaves, then he’s murdered, then her son gets kidnapped.

How much more pain could life put her through? It was so unfair. She didn’t deserve any of it.

Merlin thinks of her crying at the press conference and it’s as much of a sucker punch as when Arthur first said it. His wonderful, proud Mum, reduced to tears in front of all those people. Appealing for information while being fully aware that many of the people watching believed Magicals got what they deserved.

It makes his heart ache.

And what about the other people he loves? Will the news have spread overseas? Will Gwaine have heard about it? Or Ai, or Elena? He keeps in contact with all three of them on a weekly basis; will they have noticed his absence? 

He wishes Ai was here. He needs her calm right now, her composure. He wants her to make one of her predictions, to tell him everything’s going to be okay. He wants Elena to appear and crack some stupid joke; to ruffle his hair and tease him till he smiles. He wants Gwaine to hold him.

Merlin tries to think about something else, it’s too raw and he can’t cope. He thinks of the people at the Institute instead, wonders how they reacted to the news.

Freya and Edwin will be devastated, he knows that much. 

Morgause and Kara would be raging, no doubt. They were definitely the hardliners of the four Magical MPs currently elected; he suspects Morgause is on the warpath right now for a scalp to claim. Kara would probably be using her background as a lawyer to harass the police into prioritising the case. 

Julius would be more sanguine about it. Merlin never liked him as much as the others; he seemed to be the very definition of a career politician, smooth and disingenuous. He was probably only thinking about how he could use the kidnapping to campaigning advantage in the future. 

And Mordred…

Merlin and Mordred had shared a kiss at the last office party. Merlin had been drunk on red wine, and a night spent with his own kind, and the promise of something new in the air. Mordred had taken him onto the balcony, the city spread out at their backs, and kissed him without ceremony. Then he’d asked Merlin to come home with him and Merlin had politely declined. 

Merlin didn’t want to be with Mordred, but he’d felt that brief attraction all the same. The fact that Mordred was one of his people, that he understood what it was like to be a Magical. 

And the fact that Mordred seemed lonely, like Merlin was. 

A week later Mordred asked him to dinner and Merlin said no. Mordred took the rejection gracefully and hadn’t asked again. Merlin caught him looking over wistfully sometimes, though.

It makes him feel bad because on paper Mordred was exactly what he was looking for. Clever, funny, cute, political. A Magical. Someone who’d understand what Merlin had been through, and would never let magic become an issue between them.

And yet the spark wasn’t there. Even though the whole concept of a ‘spark’ was irritatingly irrational to Merlin’s mind. He thought he’d had a spark with Arthur at that dinner, for God’s sake. Spark was clearly not a reliable gauge of anything.

The dinner is another thing he doesn’t want to think about, because it’s so embarrassing. It feels ridiculous to be embarrassed in a situation like this, but he is. How could he not have known that Arthur was using him? When he thinks of how eager to impress Arthur he was, how flirtatious, he hates himself. Arthur must have thought he was so… easy.

He tries to block out everything about that night but little flashes keep coming through. Arthur admiring his tattoos. The way he’d listened, seemingly rapt, as Merlin spoke. The little nods and smiles he gave so generously.

A career in acting beckoned if the whole kidnapping thing didn’t work out for Arthur. Merlin had certainly fallen for it. For several moments that night, he’d been convinced that something real was blossoming between them.

If Merlin gets out of this alive, he’s never dating again. He clearly doesn’t have a clue.

  
  
  
  


The next time Arthur goes into town to update his father, there’s an unpleasant surprise waiting.

“Val and Cenred need a place to lie low for a few days; I’m sending them to you.”

Inwardly Arthur groans. Of all the people that work for Arkstone, Val and Cenred are probably his least favourite. Val’s a brainless thug and Cenred’s a creepy slime-ball, and the two of them together are hell on earth. 

But his father wouldn’t be interested in any of that because Val and Cenred are good at what they do – which is petty crime and general thuggery.

“How long is a few days?” He asks carefully, and Uther sighs audibly.

“As long as is necessary. They liberated a set of very important documents for us from the Institute’s Liverpool base yesterday and I want them to stay off the radar for at least a week. I trust this won’t be a problem Arthur.”

“Of course not,” Arthur says, hoping he doesn’t sound as sullen as he feels. A whole week with Val and Cenred? He might throw himself off Whitby pier.

They arrive that very afternoon. Arthur opens up the door when he hears them coming, bracing himself as Val’s stocky shape and Cenred’s lean figure emerge from the car.

God, was Cenred wearing leather trousers again? Someone needed to tell him the eighties were over.

Arthur swallows down the sarcasm and manages to give them an almost grin. Val, of course, slaps him so hard on the back his shoulder nearly dislocates. It’s his idea of a friendly greeting.

“Artie, long time no see. You still running errands for the big boys back at HQ?”

Arthur smiles tightly, recognising it for the dig it is.

“Yes. I can see you are too.”

Val guffaws, unoffended. He knows his value in the ranking system at Arkstone and he’s well aware his stock is higher than Arthur’s. There’s no petty crime Val and Cenred can’t be relied upon to handle. Arthur’s much less useful, in the grand scheme of things.

 _Well not anymore_ , Arthur thinks. _I’m the one who kidnapped Merlin Emrys after all_. 

It buoys him up enough to shake Cenred’s hand and then gesture them inside the house. He gives a quick tour, shows them their bedrooms (it’s a three bed, thank God, he draws a line at actually sleeping in the same room as either of them), and warns them about the lack of signal. They both fidget through the tour, and when he finally pauses for breath, Val jumps in.

“Where’s Emrys?”

Cenred looks indecently excited. Arthur jerks his thumb in the direction of the hallway.

“Basement.”

Both head over straight away and Arthur follows them down, reaching the bottom of the stairs to see that Merlin’s sat on the floor with his back to them, doing something that looks a bit like yoga.

Val lets out an immediate hoot and Merlin jumps like he’s been shocked.

He gets up and turns around warily, eyes flicking back and forth between Cenred and Val.

“This is the Institute-approved whizz kid Emrys?” Val grunts disdainfully. “He looks like something you get free with a happy meal.”

“More boy band than superhero,” Cenred says gleefully.

Merlin’s eyes flicker over to Arthur as Val and Cenred draw closer to the cell.

And though Arthur tells himself he doesn’t care, the way they’re staring at Merlin makes him very uneasy indeed.

  
  
  
  


Merlin’s been attempting to do a bit of yoga every day, to try and stimulate his underused muscles and also for whatever brief calm it could lend him. When Arthur tells him two other men are coming to stay, he finds he needs to do something to calm down. The gift of Sight was not one he had been blessed with, but he doesn’t need it to sense that this won’t be good. As much as he doesn’t like Arthur, he’s aware he could have been held hostage by someone worse. Arthur hasn’t shown much interest so far in beating or torturing him, he’s even heeded his request for vegetarian meals. It doesn’t make Arthur a good person, but it does make him a more desirable captor than the average magic hater.

He doesn’t have any details on this Val or Cenred, but he isn’t holding out much hope they’ll be the ‘live and let live’ type. Arthur might not be interested in personally tormenting him, but it doesn’t mean he’ll stop the newcomers from doing it. Short of actually killing him, they might have a free rein.

It’s not a pleasant thought process, which is why Merlin redoubles his efforts to find his inner peace when he hears the car pull up outside. He’s in a half lotus when the footsteps on the stairs sound, but he remains where he is. And then there’s an abrasive hooting noise, and despite his intention to stay calm, he jumps a little. There seems no point in pretending after that, so he gets to his feet and turns to face the intruders.

One is a stocky, musclebound man with a round face and mean eyes. His companion is taller and leaner, and dressed like a groupie of some unfortunate goth revival band. He searches their faces for a hint of empathy or humanity and comes up short. 

_Fantastic._

The stocky one makes some stupid crack. As if he hasn’t heard people make fun of his appearance before. Edwin always said it was one of the greatest advantages he had, the way people underestimated him. He could always catch people off guard.

(Privately Edwin had added that maybe Morgause could take a leaf out of Merlin’s book and stop stalking into rooms like the Queen of the Damned, which was unfortunately overheard by Morgause and led to Edwin’s eyebrows being singed off by a well-aimed fireball.) 

Merlin has always found it to be an advantage, but right now he wishes he was bigger. More imposing. Scary looking. He didn’t like the anticipation in the men’s eyes, like he was about to become their new favourite punching bag.

“More boy band than superhero,” the taller one says. “Seen those tattoos, Val? Maybe he thinks he’s a hard man.”

The stocky one – presumably Val – snorts. 

“Pretty sure hard men don’t get little fuckin’ birdies inked on ‘em.”

Merlin clenches his fists involuntarily.

Cenred laughs.

“Ooh, he’s getting mad, look.”

“What’s he gonna do?” Val says dismissively. “Bet he’s useless even with his magic.”

“Take off the suppressor and see,” Merlin bites out.

Val’s eyes narrow.

“We should go over some stuff upstairs,” Arthur says, unnecessarily loudly. 

“In a minute,” Val says.

He walks up to the cell.

“You should show us some respect, Emrys. Me and Cen are sticking around a few days, you wouldn’t wanna get off on the wrong foot, would you?”

“Piss off,” Merlin spits, infuriated. He’s not going to cower at these men’s feet, no matter what they threaten him with.

“Oh dear,” Val says acidly. “I think we’re gonna have to teach him some manners, Cen.”

“Guys, this needs to be done now,” Arthur interjects, gesturing towards the stairs. 

They both ignore him.

“I didn’t know you could teach Magicals anything,” Cenred muses. “I thought they were too stupid.”

“You’ve gotta train ‘em like dogs,” Val says. “Till they learn to obey.”

Merlin flushes and Cenred laughs again. It’s an oddly high pitched sound and it sets Merlin’s teeth on edge.

“Here doggy,” he says, snapping his fingers through the bars of the cell. “Roll over and beg.”

Merlin opens his mouth to say something obscene but Arthur gets in first.

“Guys. Upstairs. I’m not asking again.”

Something in his tone carries this time because Val reluctantly turns away from the cell.

“Alright, alright.”

Arthur leaves the basement and Val makes to follow him.

Cenred lingers.

“He’s pretty, isn’t he?” He says softly.

Something cold settles in Merlin’s stomach.

Val rolls his eyes.

“You always think they’re pretty.”

“That last one was pretty,” Cenred says, his eyes fixed on Merlin. “I was almost sorry when I had to break his neck.”

Merlin’s hands are shaking but he keeps them curled tight into fists.

“Company motto, Cen. Only good Magical’s a dead Magical.”

Cenred giggles.

“That’s not the company motto,” he says.

“Well it should be. Come on, say goodbye to Pretty Boy. You can see him later.”

“Bye, Pretty Boy,” Cenred says slowly. “I’ll see you later.”

Merlin stays upright until he hears the cellar door shut and then he sits down heavily on the bed. His fingernails have been pressed so tight into his palms that they’ve left indentations.

Cenred’s trying to scare him. They both are. He’s not going to fall for it. They’re sadists and sadists chase reactions. Merlin won’t give them any.

Arthur wouldn’t let them do anything to him anyway. Surely?

But Arthur only needs him alive. It doesn’t technically matter what state he’s in.

The anxiety in Merlin’s stomach increases, till he has to curl up on his side to alleviate it. He tries to remember the class at the Institute and what they said about dealing with people hostile to the Magical cause.

_Don’t escalate the situation._

He’s already done that.

_Don’t needlessly antagonise them._

He’s done that too.

_If possible, remove yourself from the location._

Not an option.

_Find an ally._

Was Arthur an ally? In the bigger picture, obviously not. But in this new situation… Merlin doesn’t know. 

But over the following few days, his attitude towards Arthur shifts somewhat. Merlin hates to admit it, but he feels safer when Arthur’s around.

He still doesn’t like him, he still resents him for everything he’s done, but he’s currently the lesser of two evils by far.

Val and Cenred are… 

Merlin doesn’t want to be scared of them but he is. It’s not just that Val reminds him of every schoolyard bully he’s ever known; mean, and thuggish, and prone to violent outbursts. It’s not just the way Cenred’s eyes crawl across Merlin’s body, unashamedly lascivious as his lips form the words ‘Pretty Boy.’ 

It’s the fact that they could do anything to him and he’s powerless to stop them.

He’s never been much of a threat without his magic. Morgause insisted on trying to teach him self-defence back at the Institute but she wasn’t a very patient tutor and he grew tired of going home every day with bruises all over him. His body just didn’t work like that. He kept himself fit and healthy, but it was running he concentrated on, not bulking up. He figured speed would be a better attribute than brute strength if he found himself in a sticky situation.

But if he was honest, he hadn’t thought that much about it at all. He always knew he had his magic to fight back with. And he was powerful enough with that alone that he could afford to neglect his physical strength. 

He’s got nothing now. He could have blasted Val and Cenred into the next dimension with a single word in normal circumstances, but the ankle tag renders him close to useless.

Freya always said strength didn’t come from physical prowess, or even from magic. She would scold Merlin for deeming himself useless, but right now he feels it. He can’t stand the fact that Val and Cenred are calling all the shots.

And they love it. They love to lord it over him, to sit on the table outside his cell and tell loud mocking jokes, to steal bits of his food before they hand it over. 

And when they’re not making fun of him they’re trying to intimidate him, sharing stories of the terrible things they’ve done to Magicals over the years, banging the bars of his cell suddenly so that he jumps, threatening to come in and give him something to cry about.

It sets his nerves on edge. He hates being mocked when he has no recourse to reply, but the stories about the other Magicals are worse. It makes him feel physically ill to listen to some of them. He’s spent his whole life hearing horror stories about people like Val and Cenred and now they’re his jailors. And the fact that they’ve succeeded so well in frightening him is even harder to stomach.

Maybe that’s why he tells Val to fuck off. He’s just sick of feeling helpless. 

It’s in response to some stupid joke Val makes about his merlin tattoos and he regrets it almost the second it’s out of his mouth.

Val turns slowly, in the act of taking his empty lunch plate out of the cell.

“What was that?”

Merlin’s hands are trembling slightly but he balls them into fists because he refuses to back down now.

“I said, fuck off.”

Cenred makes a kind of whooping noise from the table.

“Kitten’s got claws!”

Val ignores him, his eyes narrowing dangerously.

“I’ll give you one chance to take that back.”

Silence. Val drops the plate and takes two quick steps forward.

Merlin sees the fist coming but he can’t do more than try and brace himself before it drives into his stomach and shocks the air out of him.

He drops to his knees, wheezing.

Val kicks him full force in the side.

It’s so painful that for a moment Merlin’s vision whites out. The momentum of the kick carries him onto his back and he lies there, gasping for breath, close to blacking out from the agony.

He can’t hear what Val says next but he feels it when something warm and wet lands on his cheek, and it takes him a second to realise that he’s not actually crying.

Val’s spat on him.

He’s vaguely aware of Val leaving the cell but he lies on his back for a long time, unable to move. 

It hurts to breathe and it hurts to think and he hates them he hates everything he hates Arthur he hates…

Gradually the blinding pain reduces to a throbbing ache and he’s able to lever himself up and climb onto the bed. He wipes the spit off his face and refuses to let the tears threatening at the back of his eyes fall. Worse things have happened in his life. Hell, he’s even taken harder hits than that before. Some of the marches in Washington got vicious, and there was an incident where a cop in full riot gear slammed his baton into Merlin’s side and broke two of his ribs. He’d had no medical insurance out there and so his friendly hippy roommate had kept him high for the next three days as the only form of pain relief on offer.

He doesn’t think things will be any better here on the medication front. He’s just going to have to tough it out.

He can do that. He’s been doing it all his life. 

_Endure._

Luckily Arthur doesn’t leave the house the next day, and Val and Cenred seem to spend most of it in front of the TV, if the raucous laughter that drifts down through the ceiling is any indication. 

But the next afternoon, Val and Cenred come downstairs not long after lunch and settle themselves at the table. He tries to hang on to his newfound semblance of fortitude, to remind himself he’s survived worse and lived to tell the tale.

But it’s hard to stay calm when the sources of his stress are sat three metres away playing cards and drinking beer.

He surmises from their conversation that Arthur’s gone out for a walk. They don’t say much more about Arthur but their tone is not exactly complimentary. Not for the first time Merlin wonders about the interpersonal relationships at play here. He has no idea what role Cenred and Val fulfil in whatever mysterious company Arthur works for, but he’s guessing it’s some kind of heavy work. The stories they tell fit the idea of them being hired thugs. He can only hope some of the things he’s heard have been exaggerated for his benefit.

Either way, there doesn’t seem to be much love lost between them and Arthur. He wonders why. They’re all on the same side, after all. The side that happens to be against Merlin and everything he stands for. 

He knows he’s more vulnerable when Arthur’s not there. However, Val and Cenred seem wrapped up in their own conversation for the time being. He keeps his back to them and tries not to draw any attention to himself. Until he realises he needs to use the bathroom.

Asking them is not an option. It’s an invitation to something awful and Merlin’s not that stupid. And yet…

He tries to ignore the growing pain in his bladder. How long would Arthur be out for? If he could just hang on until he came back, until Cenred and Val left the cellar…

He waits as long as he can and Arthur still doesn’t arrive.

_This is ridiculous._

Steeling himself, he gets off the bed. His side still aches in protest every time he moves, and he has to grit his teeth against the pain. He’s limping slightly as he walks up to the bars, but he’s on his feet and that’s enough.

_Endure._

“I need to use the bathroom,” he says clearly, and is pleased by the nonchalance of his voice. But he can’t stop the shiver of anxiety that runs through him when Val and Cenred exchange a look.

But then Cenred walks over, unlocking the door without a fuss.

“Sure, no problem,” he says, beckoning Merlin forward to untie his hands and drop the rope on the floor.

When Merlin steps out of the cell, Cenred’s hand closes around his arm. They start to walk in the direction of the toilet and then Cenred suddenly stops by the table. Merlin tries to carry on going, but Cenred jerks him backwards and down into one of the chairs.

As though it was choreographed Val appears behind him, cuffs dangling from his fingers. Merlin tries to get up again but Cenred pins him, and Val yanks his arms around the back of the chair before securely cuffing them together.

Merlin tries to stay calm.

“I just need to go to the bathroom,” he says as evenly as possible.

Cenred smiles wide.

“So, go.”

  
  
  
  


When Arthur gets back, he feels more relaxed than he has in days. It was his first chance to have a proper long hike and he enjoyed every second of it. He walked for miles in the bracing cold, the landscape stretched out before him like a challenge: daring him to call it picturesque when it was pitiless, charming when it was wild.

When he steps into the hallway he can hear raucous noises coming from the basement and he’s tempted to just go to his bedroom. He doesn’t really want to interact with Val and Cenred, especially not when they’re in a rowdy mood. But then he probably needs to check in with them at least once a day, so he sighs and heads down. 

Val and Cenred are laughing hysterically and Arthur just hopes to God they’re not watching some weird porno on their mobiles again, they seem to find that as hilarious as Arthur finds it uncomfortable. But when he reaches the bottom of the stairs, he sees they’re not alone at the table.

Merlin’s cuffed to the third chair, staring straight ahead. There’s what looks like a water stain on his top and his lips are clamped together, jaw so tight it looks painful. There’s a half-full two litre bottle of water on the table, as well as several empty cans of beer.

  
  
  
  
  


“What’s going on?” Arthur says, and Val and Cenred swivel round.

“Artie! Come in mate, I think you’re just in time.”

“In time for what?” Arthur says slowly.

“Pretty Boy’s gonna piss himself,” Cenred says gleefully, and Arthur recoils. 

“What?”

“Yeah, he asked to go like half an hour ago and we’ve been making him drink water since then so it ain’t gonna be long,” Val says.

Merlin’s gaze has dropped, but Arthur can see the flush rising across his face, the redness of his ears. The fact that’s he’s trembling slightly.

“For fuck’s sakes Val, fucking un-cuff him now,” Arthur snaps.

“Why?”

“He’s not here so you can fuck around with him.”

“He’s a Magical and a hostage,” Val says slowly, like Arthur’s the thick one. “What do you care?”

“I don’t _care_ ,” Arthur retorts, “but I need him in one piece, not fucking dead from some infection after his bladder bursts.”

“His bladder won’t burst,” Cenred says. “He’ll piss himself first.”

They both snigger and Arthur’s patience runs out.

“Get the fuck out, both of you. Go watch TV or something.”

Both Val and Cenred glare resentfully at him but he stares them down. They know he’s in charge. After a suitably insolent pause Val slams the cuff keys down on the table and they both get up and leave.

Arthur waits till he hears the door to the cellar shut before he grabs the keys and unlocks Merlin, who still won’t meet his eyes. The moment the cuffs are off Merlin jumps up from the chair and heads straight into the toilet, slamming the door behind him with an almighty bang.

Arthur stares at the bottle of the water on the table, feeling slightly sick. He’ll readily accept that Merlin doesn’t deserve special treatment. He’s a prisoner here and Arthur’s prepared to make sure he stays in line by any means necessary, even if he has to rough him up a little.

But trying to humiliate him? For no better reason than thinking it’s funny? It’s not right.

Uther once told Arthur that Magicals would use normal people like puppets if they could. 

_“We’d be slaves to them Arthur, they’d manipulate us for their entertainment. Demean us for their own sick pleasure.”_

Arthur supposed it was possible. When one group had that much power over another, it was inevitable. But Merlin doesn’t have the power in this situation. They do, and Val and Cenred are the ones demeaning him for pleasure. It makes him deeply uncomfortable. 

When Merlin emerges, his face is dark. Arthur tries to put a hand on his shoulder as he opens up the cell door, but Merlin shrugs it off and stomps past him. He practically hurls himself into the cell and onto the bed, lying down so his back is to Arthur.

An apology is forming on Arthur’s lips but he swallows it down. He shouldn’t be apologising to hostages. He picks up the discarded rope from the ground but decides not to rebind Merlin’s wrists. Instead he goes upstairs to grab a book and his iPod and comes back down to sit at the table. He can at least stay here until Val and Cenred go to bed; make sure they don’t decide to pay Merlin another visit.

If Merlin knows what he’s doing, it doesn’t make a difference. He keeps his back to Arthur for the entire evening.

  
  
  
  


Merlin is furious. He doesn’t know who he’s angrier at: Val and Cenred, for what they did to him or Arthur, for letting it happen.

Or himself, for feeling so ashamed.

Of all the little indignities that had taken place since he woke up in this cell, tonight had been the most degrading. Val and Cenred had taken it in turns to force water down his throat, till he’d been afraid he would choke on it. The rest of the time they’d spent mocking him, taunting him with the knowledge he was going to wet himself in front of them and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Just thinking about it makes Merlin feel hot with shame. He’d held on for as long as he humanly could, but if Arthur hadn’t come in when he did, he knows he would have lost control.

Arthur. What was it he’d said? _I need him in one piece, not fucking dead from some infection after his bladder bursts._

He didn’t tell them to stop because it was cruel or inhumane. All that matters to him is ensuring Merlin stays alive long enough to be a pawn in the game. He doesn’t care what Val and Cenred do to him, and the proof of that is in Merlin’s aching ribs.

So he curls up on his side facing away from Arthur and refuses to look at him, even though Arthur spends the rest of the evening sat at the table for some reason.

At some point he must drift off to sleep because when he wakes up the clock on the wall says eight and Arthur is stood there with his breakfast. When he steps inside Merlin automatically presents his wrists to be untied and then realises that no-one put the rope back on last night. He dares to hope a little, but Arthur ties them again when he’s finished eating. No words are spoken until Arthur turns to leave and then pauses at the foot of the stairs.

“I have to go out for a bit. I’ll be back soon.”

Merlin frowns. It’s not like Arthur makes a habit of informing him of his comings and goings. Then it occurs to him what Arthur’s really saying.

_I won’t leave you alone with them for too long._

Merlin’s both grateful and pissed off about this so he says nothing, resuming his previous position of lying on the bed with the back to the bars.

He thinks he hears Arthur sigh slightly, and then he’s gone.

He wonders how a long ‘a bit’ is. One hour? Two? Three? When do Cenred and Val usually wake up? Will they think to come down here first thing in the morning?

Merlin hates the fact that he’s afraid of those bastards, but he is. It’s not as though he likes Arthur, but at least the guy tends to just ignore him. Val and Cenred are completely unpredictable. They could do anything to him.

He tells himself not to worry unduly but when he hears the door open at the top of the stairs, a wave of fear sweeps through him. He shuts his eyes and tries to relax his body, hoping they’ll think he’s sleeping and leave him alone.

No such luck, within seconds there’s an almighty banging on the cell bars.

“Pretty Boy! Wake up! Wake up, wake up, wake up!”

Determined to show he’s not afraid he sits up and turns to face them. They jeer at him.

“That was fun last night, wasn’t it?” Val says, mock friendly. “Pity Arthur had to ruin it.”

“He’s gone out now,” Cenred puts in. “Might not be back for ages.”

Merlin glares at them, trying not to feel the thump of his heart.

“Wanna come out and sit with us again?”

“I’ll stay put, thanks,” he says, as flatly as he can manage.

“Oh, come on.”

Merlin doesn’t reply, even when Val rattles the keys to the cell door in front of his face.

“He doesn’t wanna come out, Cen,” Val says, sighing.

“Maybe we should come in there,” Cenred suggests. 

“What, so you can get in bed with him?”

“Now there’s an idea,” Cenred says, turning his unblinking eyes on Merlin, who does his best not to shudder.

He’s almost certain Cenred only talks like that to unnerve him; that it’s part of the persona he adopts to contrast with Val’s temperamental thug act. He’s _almost_ certain, but he can’t know for sure, and even the remotest possibility that Cenred might make good on his intimations is enough to render him numb with fear.

When Cenred unlocks the cell door, Merlin takes an involuntary step back.

“Leave me alone,” he says, and he hates that it comes out wavering, weak-sounding.

“Leave me alone!” Val mimics in a high pitched voice. “Christ, you are pathetic.”

Merlin’s temper flares. 

“I’m not the one squaring up to a guy with his hands tied together. Real big man you are,” he snaps.

Val steps straight into the cell and towards Merlin, who flinches but stands his ground. But Val only grabs his hands and unties the rope binding them.

He drops it on the floor and steps back.

“There. Fair fight now, Emrys. You and me.”

Merlin’s heart lurches. Val’s not actually expecting him to fist fight, is he? Merlin doesn’t know how, and Val’s twice his size anyway. He doesn’t stand a chance.

But if it’s a choice between just taking whatever Val dishes out, or at least trying to fight back, his decision is obvious. He raises his fists and Cenred cheers. 

Val spreads his arms, expansive.

“First hit’s on me. I’m feeling generous.”

Merlin doesn’t wait for a written invitation. He aims at Val’s chin, vaguely remembering it’s a good place to do damage, but Val ducks back with ease and Merlin barely grazes his skin.

“Like I said, pathetic,” he says, shaking his head. “Let me show you how it’s done.”

Merlin tries to dodge but he still takes a glancing blow to the temple and it sends him reeling for a few seconds. He stumbles back and convulses in horror when he feels Cenred’s hands on him, holding him upright. He pulls himself away quickly and nearly falls forward into Val. This close to Val’s body he has an idea and brings his knee up swiftly, to a satisfying cry of pain.

“Ow! Fuck!”

It’s Val’s turn to stumble back, bending double, face screwing up with pain.

“Little bastard kneed me in the balls,” he groans out and Merlin takes a second to enjoy his victory before Val regroups.

“You’re fucking dead,” he growls and advances.

This time the fist catches Merlin solidly in the mouth, and his whole head snaps back in agony. The metallic tang of blood is on his tongue, and he spits a mouthful out on the floor, dizzy with pain. When he lifts his head again, the open cell door is all he sees.

Merlin runs, making it all the way to the bottom of the stairs before arms wrap around him, dragging him back to the cell. He thrashes desperately and a voice next to his ear tuts.

“Calm down, Pretty. I’ve got you.”

He goes rigid as he registers the hand that’s slowly moving across his body, snaking its way downwards. Cenred’s breath is hot on his neck and for a moment Merlin is totally paralysed by fear.

Then Cenred licks the shell of his ear and Merlin begins to scream.

Cenred startles slightly and his grip loosens. Across the cell, Val looks over in surprise.

“What the fuck?”

Merlin can’t stop now he’s started, it’s all white noise and panic in his head and he carries on screaming even after the hands have left his body and he’s slumping helplessly to the floor. 

“Fucking freak,” he hears Val say above him. Someone bends to tie his hands roughly in front of him again, and then the cell door is clanging shut. But it doesn’t matter that they’re gone, he can’t stop until his voice finally runs out and he’s only making choked noises into the empty air around him. 

  
  
  
  
  


Answering Uther’s emails takes Arthur longer than expected and he doesn’t make it back until past midday. Val and Cenred are slumped in front of the TV and Arthur breathes a sigh of relief. He goes to the kitchen and makes a sandwich, grabbing a bottle of water and an apple from the side. 

When he walks down to the cellar, Merlin’s lying in the exact same position he left him in. Arthur wonders if he fell asleep again.

“I’m back,” he says and immediately feels foolish. Merlin is not his wife and he’s not coming home after a hard day at the office. He covers his embarrassment by rattling the tray in his hand.

“Lunch.”

Merlin doesn’t move and Arthur wonders if he’s still sulking about last night. He huffs slightly, unlocking the cell door to let himself in.

“Lunch, Merlin. Sit up or I’ll eat it.”

Merlin sits up very slowly, his back still to Arthur. Then he pivots round on the bed and Arthur bites back a cry of shock.

There’s a vivid purple bruise forming on his right temple and his lip is split open, swollen and still dribbling blood.

“What the hell happened to you?” Arthur asks. 

“Like you don’t know.”

Merlin’s tone is bitter and it only takes a few seconds for Arthur’s brain to catch up because who else could have done this?

“Val and Cenred?” He says stupidly, even though he knows the answer.

Merlin’s face hardens.

“Don’t pretend you didn’t know they were doing this.”

His voice sounds raspy, strained.

“I didn’t,” Arthur says, and something in his voice must have sounded genuine because Merlin stops glaring and drops his eyes instead.

Arthur reaches out to untie Merlin’s hands, although it looks like lunch will have to wait for a while.

“I really d- wait, did you say ‘doing this’? What else have they done?”

Merlin regards Arthur for a minute, like he’s trying to decide whether it’s even worth answering. Then he shrugs and lifts his t-shirt up to his neck.

There’s a greenish-yellow patch spreading out on Merlin’s lower abdomen but it’s dwarfed in comparison with the huge bruise on the side of Merlin’s ribs, so dark it’s almost black. 

“They did this?”

“Val did this,” Merlin corrects. “Cenred’s more of a watch and laugh kind of guy.”

“When?”

“Two days ago.”

Merlin starts to lower his shirt but Arthur stills his hand.

“Is anything broken?” 

Merlin makes a noncommittal sound.

Arthur sucks in a breath and before Merlin can stop him he’s feeling along his ribcage, prodding into the flesh.

“Ow!”

“Has to be done,” Arthur says grimly, and carries on. It takes a minute before he declares himself satisfied.

“Probably not broken. Maybe fractured, but they’ll heal on their own anyway so…”

Arthur looks up at Merlin.

“Did he kick you?”

“Why, can you see the boot print?” Merlin snaps, dropping his t-shirt again.

Arthur winces at how rough his voice sounds.

“Is your throat okay? Did they-”

“What do you care?”

Merlin’s chin is raised in challenge, but now that Arthur looks at him properly, he can see that he’s in a bad way. His skin is even paler than usual and he’s trembling slightly. Arthur’s seen Merlin pissed off before, and furious, and apprehensive. But he hasn’t seen him quite like this. Whatever Val and Cenred did, they’d succeeded in scaring Merlin badly.

He finds himself strangely angry. They were here to lay low, that was all. They had no remit to do anything else. No call to torment the hostage for their own amusement. 

And he shouldn’t have left them to their own devices. If he’d been paying more attention…

Arthur gets up abruptly, and goes upstairs. He grabs some ibuprofen and wets a washcloth; then goes to the freezer and takes out one of the packets of Quorn mince. When he gets back into the cell Merlin looks surprised. Apparently he thought Arthur had just walked away from the whole conversation.

_Why would he expect anything better from you?_

He sits back down beside Merlin and gestures to his split lip.

“May I?”

Arthur dabs the blood away as best he can and then grabs the bottle of water he brought with lunch and hands Merlin two ibuprofen. He waits for Merlin to swallow before offering him the Quorn to hold against his face.

“Aren’t you meant to give me frozen peas?” Merlin rasps out.

“Quorn’s an excellent source of low fat protein,” Arthur says very seriously. He sees Merlin almost laugh before catching himself, pressing the bag to his face instead.

There’s silence for a few minutes.

“I’ll talk to them,” Arthur says at last. 

“I’m sure that’ll scare ‘em,” Merlin replies, and he sounds very tired.

“It will. I’m in charge here.”

He is in charge and it’s about time he started acting like it. Val and Cenred are gonna do as he says from now on.

He gives Merlin a sidelong look. A part of him wants to apologise, but it wouldn’t be appropriate. So he gets as close to it as he can.

“This shouldn’t have happened.”

Merlin exhales.

“You heard what Val said last night. I’m a Magical and a hostage. They can do what they want to me.”

“No, Merlin, they can’t. And they won’t. Not anymore.”

He can’t tell if Merlin’s at all reassured.

“They’ll be gone in two days anyway,” he adds.

Merlin’s expression quite clearly indicates that he thinks two days is enough time for all kinds of damage. Arthur doesn’t know quite what comes over him, but he says:

“And I think I might move down here for a bit.” 

Merlin looks startled, and Arthur tries to make it sound like less of a big deal.

“Why should you hog all the prime mould and damp spots?”

“Why indeed?” Merlin responds, sounding a little more like himself. “There’s some nice asbestos in the corner if you want a piece of that action.”

“Lovely. All we’re missing are a few rats now.”

“I think there’s two upstairs,” Merlin says solemnly and Arthur’s lip twitches. 

He thinks that Merlin might not have fully believed him, judging by his reaction when he brings his duvet and pillow down to drape across the couch that night. But Arthur has zero intention of going back on his word and spends the next two days either parked at the table reading, or asleep on the couch. 

Val and Cenred are clearly irritated by his watchdog act, but they don’t quite dare openly rebel against him. He doesn’t say anything directly about what they did, but next time Cenred rattles the bars of Merlin’s cell, Arthur gives him a swift cuff on the head.

“Don’t do that. It pisses me off.”

Cenred whines and Val grumbles but Arthur doesn’t budge. They spend most of the rest of their visit upstairs watching DVDs, all sources of entertainment in the basement cut off by Arthur’s constant, implacable presence. He knows they’ll probably go straight back to complain about him to Uther but he finds he doesn’t really care.

When they finally get back in their car and drive away, Arthur wanders downstairs humming Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead.

Merlin favours him with a very small smile.


	6. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Discussion of emotional effects of sexual harassment

Things are markedly different after Val and Cenred leave. For one thing, he and Arthur actually start to talk to each other.

It began in the two days that Arthur moved downstairs before Val and Cenred left. It somehow felt unnatural not to speak to someone who was just there all the time, sat right in front of you. And Merlin had never been good with silence. At first he’d simply peppered Arthur with questions about the kidnapping, all of which Arthur ignored. Then he decided a better tactic would be to talk about other things until Arthur let his guard down.

But somehow it just ends up with them talking.

It’s bizarre, because they have no common ground to start from. Their current situation is too odd to be ignored, and yet somehow they do ignore it. There are times in those first two days when they manage to conduct fairly long conversations without any reference at all to the circumstances of their acquaintance. 

He knows it’s strange but Merlin’s almost given up trying to predict what will happen next. It’s not like he’s ever been kidnapped before, he doesn’t know the protocol. Perhaps trying to normalise the situation is a totally natural thing to do, to keep yourself from going mad. He can’t interact with Arthur on the level of a kidnapper and a hostage, he has to try and relate to him as something else.

It’s gotten a lot easier to do that since Arthur stood up for him with Cenred and Val. Merlin still can’t quite understand the weird sense of relief he felt when he realised Arthur didn’t know that they’d been hurting him. The idea that Arthur was condoning it from the side-lines had only made it more painful, for some reason. But when Arthur had moved down into the basement with him, it had activated some kind of temporary bond between them. While Val and Cenred were still in the house, he and Arthur had become a united front against them. And that bond should have disappeared after they left, but some of it had lingered for Merlin. He still had a vague sense that Arthur was on his team somehow.

Which is ludicrous and Merlin knows it is. He remembers learning about ‘traumatic bonding’ in one of the Institute workshops on domestic abuse; run because Magicals were statistically more vulnerable to intimate partner abuse than the general populace. The instructor said traumatic bonding was a common coping mechanism to deal with prolonged emotional distress. Merlin hates to think he’s succumbed so quickly to such a huge psychological alteration, but he can’t deny that the stress of being kidnapped compounded with Val and Cenred’s attacks had left him feeling lost and desperate. The fact that he was engaging with Arthur at all seemed proof that he was trying to find a solid base to cling on to.

But if traumatic bonding is what’s happening here, he’s not the instigator. Arthur’s the one who ups the emotional stakes, not Merlin. Arthur’s the one who changes the tenor of their relationship, after two days of sticking to completely neutral topics.

The day after Val and Cenred leave, Arthur brings Merlin his breakfast, sits down at the table, and abruptly announces that he hates his job. He follows this entirely unexpected statement with a long litany of all the ways in which he despises his work, and how bored he is, and how he longs to do something else.

Eventually Merlin remembers himself and cautiously asks where Arthur works, for what must be nearly the fiftieth time.

Arthur says Arkstone. With no preamble.

After refusing to answer the question for so long, Merlin’s naturally suspicious that Arthur’s lying. Arthur must see the scepticism on his face because he flatly informs Merlin that Uther Pendragon, head of Arkstone and prominent anti-Magical figure, is his father.

Merlin doesn’t know whether to believe this either, until he remembers that Uther Pendragon does have a son, and that son’s name is definitely Arthur. 

This particular revelation knocks him for six. He spends the next few hours in his cell dredging up everything he knows about Arkstone and Uther Pendragon. Arkstone’s been a thorn in the Institute’s side for years, and Merlin had personally presided over a campaign only last year to call for an inquiry into Arkstone’s dissemination of propaganda against Magical scientists and medical professionals. 

So he’d known Arkstone were not to be trusted. But he hadn’t known they stooped to kidnapping. On the surface, they were a respectable organisation. There’d been rumours over the years, of course, but nothing on this level.

Uther Pendragon he knew only from newspaper articles and occasional television appearances. He’d never met the man and he’d never wanted to. Uther was a bigot, plain and simple, and a rigid one at that. Attitudes towards magic had changed so rapidly even in the last twenty years, but Merlin suspected Uther Pendragon would hate Magicals till the day he died. There was nothing about the man that suggested compromise, or any receptiveness to a different point of view. He didn’t seem capable of change.

Edwin always said that the death of Uther’s wife had warped his mind. Merlin knows she died in childbirth and he realises with a sick jolt that it was probably Arthur she was giving birth to. Edwin seemed to think Uther would have been different if his wife had lived, but Morgause had never agreed. She said he was always full of hate. Kara called him the coldest bastard she’d ever known, and even Julius’ usual bland charm gave way to disgust when Uther’s name came up.

Merlin is genuinely shocked to learn that Arthur is his son. He’d just about made up his mind that Arthur was some kind of freelance kidnapper who sold his services to the highest bidder. He had yet to make any anti-Magical comments, and he didn’t act disgusted or repulsed by Merlin as many who hated magic tended to. There was a clear difference in the way Val and Cenred treated Merlin and the way Arthur behaved towards him. Merlin had concluded that Arthur had no personal feelings on magic whatsoever, and was simply fulfilling the obligations of his contract.

But none of that’s true if Arthur actually works for Arkstone, and if Arthur has Uther Pendragon for a father. There’s no way Arthur isn’t anti-Magical. He must be a key player in the movement for him to have been entrusted with this role.

It’s silly for Merlin to be disappointed, but he is anyway. The idea of Arthur as a disinterested freelance criminal picking up a pay check was somehow much easier to countenance than this. Perhaps Merlin was just more comfortable being in close proximity with someone who didn’t necessarily hate him for the way he was made. And that’s ruined now. He has to go back to being on guard against Arthur. 

And he’d start by figuring out what kind of game Arthur was playing by suddenly telling Merlin exactly who he was.

He’s wary when Arthur comes in with his lunch and starts talking again. But he ends up more confused than anything. Arthur doesn’t ask him a single question about the Institute, doesn’t try to coax any information from him or even dance around the topic. He just talks more about the things he does at Arkstone. Most of what he says is strangely mundane; supervisors he doesn’t get along with, being paid less than employees who joined after him. It’s like listening to a co-worker complaining at the water cooler. But some of it is connected with their policies and projects. Merlin listens for the anti-Magical bias, now that Arthur’s outed himself, but it doesn’t really seem to be there. Arthur’s tone is strangely neutral throughout.

Merlin doesn’t really talk back but Arthur doesn’t seem to expect him to. He speaks for about an hour and then he just stops. Takes out a book and begins reading. It’s bizarre.

By the time Arthur starts up another stream of consciousness after dinner, Merlin begins to chime in. Asks a few questions of his own. Arthur answers most of them, only ignoring the ones of a personal nature. He tells Merlin things that Arkstone would surely want to be kept hidden from a person working at the Institute. Merlin tries to store away every piece of information he gets for later, even as he wonders why Arthur’s choosing to share any of this. It could be a pack of lies, of course, which is frankly the only explanation that makes any sense to Merlin right now. He does not get Arthur’s angle at all. The only plausible justification is that Arthur’s trying to set a trap for the Institute once Merlin relays this information back.

He goes to bed thinking about it and when he wakes up the next day, he vows to look for patterns in the things Arthur’s revealing about Arkstone. What is he trying to lead Merlin to transmit to the Institute when he gets out of here? Why is he planting these particular pieces of information?

But Arthur doesn’t talk about Arkstone at all the next two days. 

He talks about his childhood.

Arthur tells Merlin about training. About eating a certain diet, about going running at the crack of dawn, about spending the weekends practising shooting and tracking and other survival skills. He tells him about learning how to cook, how to dress a wound, how to overpower an attacker, how to throw a knife. How to navigate his way home after being dropped off in a forest twenty miles from where he lived with only a compass in his pocket. Aged thirteen.

It’s all delivered in a distinctly matter of fact manner. Arthur appears to be totally unemotional about the things he’s saying; as though he’s telling a story about someone else’s life. He’s not asking for pity, but pity is what Merlin feels anyway.

Uther sounds like a monster. And he comes across that way not because Arthur says he is, or because Arthur badmouths him in any fashion. He comes across that way because of how hard Arthur tries _not_ to criticise him. Uther’s presence is in the background of every story, his malign influence evident in every evenly related anecdote of a child being forced to act like an adult long before his time.

Merlin listens to this and he can’t help but feel sorry for Arthur, perverse though it may seem. The more he talks about his early life and the way Uther raised him, the more Merlin sees how damaged Arthur really is. The composure, the bravado, the coldness; it’s all just a front. The man behind it is a self-loathing, insecure mess. After the childhood he had, Merlin wonders if Arthur could have turned out any other way. Uther had tried to mould his son in his image and when that hadn’t worked out, he had taught him to hate himself. To believe he was never good enough, so that Arthur would spend every waking moment trying to earn his father’s favour. 

It was sickeningly clever. 

The hardest part is that Arthur doesn’t seem to blame his father for anything. If anything, he blames himself for failing to live up to Uther’s standards.

The whole thing makes Merlin desperately sad. He knows he should hate and resent Arthur for what he’s done, but now that he knows everything that led up to this point… 

Arthur never really stood a chance.

  
  
  
  


Arthur came prepared for this mission but he hadn’t really anticipated how it would be to have another person around all the time. It worked well enough when he was simply ignoring Merlin, but that doesn’t seem like an option once he moves downstairs. Because Merlin’s just… there. And it’s hard to pretend he isn’t when Merlin keeps speaking to him.

A lot of it is still Merlin insulting him. Or demanding to know who he works for. Or complaining about being locked up. But when Merlin grows tired of that, occasionally they actually have a conversation. An innocuous one, about weather or a film or the food Arthur’s cooked, but a conversation none the less. And if Val or Cenred make a noise from upstairs and Merlin flinches, Arthur just speaks louder.

He thinks it helps. He hopes it does. Arthur still can’t shake his feelings of guilt about Val beating Merlin up. The swelling in Merlin’s lip has gone down, but the bruise on his temple is still vivid against his pale skin, and Arthur feels a bit ill every time he sees it. He starts trying to use conversation as a distraction, to take Merlin’s mind off the fact that the men who hurt him are still in the house.

He has to be careful though. Once or twice in the natural course of things, he nearly mentions Arkstone or his father, or anything about his personal life. He’s managed to keep all that under wraps so far, and it’s vital that Merlin doesn’t find out now. He doesn’t want his own words coming back to haunt him when Merlin gets out and goes straight back to report to the Institute.

Then it hits him. Merlin won’t be able to tell anyone anything. The second that ankle tag comes off, everything Arthur’s ever said or done to Merlin will be completely erased. Technically, he can say whatever he wants, and it’ll never come back to haunt him.

Whatever he wants. The thought is intoxicating. He was only thinking about not letting information slip, but this is a whole new opportunity in general. Arthur’s never felt free to say what he wants before, not once in his life.

When he brings Merlin his breakfast the morning after seeing Val and Cenred off, he fixes him with a purposeful look.

“I hate my job,” he says, testing the words out, seeing how they sound outside of his own head.

Merlin looks slightly surprised. Arthur doesn’t give him a chance to ask any questions though; he just talks about all the things that have been building up over the last seven years, all the grievances he never aired to anyone. 

It’s incredibly cathartic. He almost can’t believe it. The simple act of talking without a filter feels liberating beyond belief. By the time a half an hour goes by he realises that he’s barely touched his own breakfast, and Merlin is still looking at him in a vaguely bemused manner.

As he clears the plates, Merlin asks him where he works.

His prepared evasion dies on his lips.

“Arkstone,” he says, clearly enunciating the word.

Merlin raises an eyebrow, disbelief etched across his face.

“It’s true,” Arthur says. “You know Uther Pendragon?”

Merlin nods.

“I’m his son.”

Merlin’s mouth drops open slightly in a way that makes Arthur want to laugh. 

He settles for grabbing the tray and sweeping out of there. Poor Merlin must be so confused about being kept in the dark all this time, only to have Arthur switch the light on out of nowhere. The urge to laugh is gone and Arthur just feels bad.

So he tries to explain a little better in the afternoon about what he does at Arkstone, but Merlin still seems thoroughly confused. It isn’t until dinner time that he starts actually participating in the conversation.

Arthur answers most of his questions. Why not? It’ll all be gone from Merlin’s head in two week’s time anyway. 

He’s got most of the complaints about his job out of his system, and the next day he thinks maybe they can just go back to more trivial conversation making.

But then he opens his mouth and all this stuff about his childhood comes pouring out.

Arthur wonders if some part of him is trying to justify himself to Merlin. He saw the look of shock on Merlin’s face when he learnt Arthur was a Pendragon and somehow Arthur doesn’t like the idea that Merlin is now thinking of him differently. Not that Merlin could ever think well of him, but the hate of the early days has dissipated slightly since he sided with him against Val and Cenred. Arthur would rather not go back to how it was before, with Merlin constantly loathing him. It’s stressful to be in close quarters with someone who despises your every action. He much prefers their recent attempts to be civil, no matter how stilted.

Perhaps he starts talking about his upbringing to try and show Merlin that he’s a human being; that he didn’t just spring out of nowhere and start taking people hostage. He has a history and a past… even if none of that justifies what he’s doing now.

He doesn’t say everything, not even close. Nothing about Alvarr, nothing about Sophia. He tries to keep his father out of it as much as possible too; Merlin probably has some false impression of Uther as evil incarnate and Arthur would never be able to convince him that his father was just trying to do what he thought was right. Best to leave him out of the conversation all together.

It’s like before and he can’t stop once he’s started. He doesn’t look directly at Merlin after a while, because there’s an odd expression on his face that Arthur can’t quite identify. He hopes down to the very bones of him that it’s not pity. 

Also like before, once it’s all out, he just stops speaking. It’s done. He has nothing more to say. 

Except that he seems to have set a certain expectation for conversation between them. The next day he sits down at the table with one of the books Uther recommended and Merlin makes a strange snorting sound from his cell.

“Something to say?”

“Only that ‘Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing’ is an absolute joke and we used to read bits of it out loud to each other at the Institute to make each other laugh.”

“Yeah, well, I can imagine why the Institute wouldn’t be so keen on it.”

Merlin scoffs.

“You don’t honestly believe that shit, do you?”

“Everything in this book is backed up with statistics,” Arthur says automatically, echoing what Uther had always said to him when he’d questioned some of the more outlandish claims.

“Right, because statistics can never be manipulated.”

Merlin sounds disgusted and Arthur waves the book at him.

“The book is a document of Magical violence. These cases are all real.”

“Yeah, and they’re also a minority of the Magical population.”

“Oh, you’re saying they’re the exceptions then?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“What about Frank Hester?” Arthur shoots back.

Frank Hester was an infamous Magical who kidnapped and murdered seven children in the early eighties, but the sound of his name doesn’t make Merlin flinch.

“He was evil. But magic didn’t make him that way.”

“He used spells to lure the children away,” Arthur points out. “Used spells to… to torture them.”

“And other serial killers use knives or sniper rifles or their bare hands,” Merlin says, looking sadder now. “There’s a lot of ways for people to hurt each other. All they need is the motivation.”

“And you don’t think something as powerful as magic helps provide that motivation?” Arthur asks, genuinely curious. “Hell, I might start throwing my weight around if I knew I could kill some at ten paces with a single word.”

“You already do throw your weight around,” Merlin scowls. “And you’ve been reading too much propaganda. The vast majority of Magicals aren’t powerful enough to work a kill spell.”

“But some are,” Arthur says, and before he can suppress it, Alvarr’s face materialises in his head.

He shudders, ever so slightly. He should throw Alvarr in Merlin’s face; as proof positive that some Magicals have undeniably murderous intent. But that’s not the whole story. He can still see the desperation on Alvarr’s face as he grabbed for the keys, the unchecked terror when he saw the bag of drugs that was about to be forced down his throat again, to render him fight-ready and unable to run.

Alvarr had been pushed to a point beyond endurance. No matter how Uther’s tried to rewrite history since then, Arthur still remembers that. But he can’t bear to think about it so he blocks it out. He’s trained himself so that even an accidental glimpse of his scar can’t provoke an emotional response. It’s only when he’s very tired, or ill, or otherwise impaired in some way that he can’t hold it back.

But he’s none of those things now so he shoves Alvarr out of his head.

“Can you work a kill spell?” He asks, just for something to say. He doesn’t expect the slight intake of Merlin’s breath.

“No, of course not,” Merlin says, a little too quickly.

Arthur stares.

“Can you?”

“How would I know?” Merlin snaps. “It’s not like I’ve ever tried to kill someone.”

“But you know if you could,” Arthur says.

He thinks back to the briefing pack Owain gave him and frowns.

“They said you were of below average ability.” 

“Is that what they said?” Merlin bites out. “What else did ‘they’ tell you about me?”

Arthur shrugs, deliberately nonchalant. Merlin getting riled up is a welcome distraction from the brief reminder of Alvarr.

“From Brighton. Twenty five. Joined the Institute in May of last year-”

“What a crack team of researchers,” Merlin interrupts, sneering. “You could have found all that out from adding me on Facebook.”

“Are there photos of you kissing Mordred Barrett on Facebook?” Arthur says and all the blood drains out of Merlin’s face. 

Arthur instantly regrets what he said. 

“You… there are photos…”

Merlin looks positively ill and Arthur holds his hands up in a vaguely placatory way.

“Just one or two. Blurry. They’re not… no-one’s gonna use them against you or anything.”

“There is nothing to use against me,” Merlin retorts and he sounds a little sharper, like he’s recovered from the shock. “We’re not together, it was just one- and why the fuck should I explain this to you?”

“You shouldn’t,” Arthur says quickly. “Don’t.”

They sit in silence for a while.

“I guess that’s why you asked me out in the first place,” Merlin says suddenly. “Because your little team told you I liked men.”

“No,” Arthur says, surprised into honesty. “You caught me off guard on the street and I said the first thing that came into my head.”

“The first thing that came into your head was to pretend you fancied me?” Merlin says sceptically. “Not what most straight guys would do.”

“And who said I was a straight guy?” Arthur shoots back and Merlin’s eyebrows rise. 

“Alright. Still a shitty thing to do, though.”

“Never claimed it wasn’t,” Arthur mutters.

“I’d have rather you just beat me up and dragged me away."

“Really? You’d rather I beat you up?”

“Less insulting,” Merlin says defensively.

“Fine, Merlin, next time I kidnap someone I will be sure to use excessive violence rather than engineering a creative solution to the problem.”

“Creative solution, do you know what a prat you sound? Are you actually trying to claim moral high ground for not using violence when you KIDNAPPED me?”

Merlin is clearly incredibly annoyed, which makes what Arthur says next extremely ill advised.

“I paid for dinner; doesn’t that get me any credit?” 

There’s a long pause.

Merlin bursts out laughing.

Somehow it’s infectious and Arthur ends up joining in too. It’s not just what he said; it’s the utter ridiculousness of the entire situation. Merlin clearly sees the absurdity as much as he does.

“This is insane,” Merlin says when he’s finally stopped for breath.

“Yeah, I know.”

They look at each other for a moment and the gaze lingers for a moment too long. Arthur clears his throat self-consciously, looking down to check his watch.

“I have to go into town.”

He starts to head for the stairs.

“Wait, Arthur. How big is this town? Does it have a bookshop?”

“I don’t think so. It has one of those crappy wholesale ones.”

“The Works?” Merlin says eagerly.

“Yeah, but they only sell like, cookbooks and that true crime shit.”

“But they also sell those Wordsworth Classics,” Merlin says. “Really cheap, like three for a fiver. Will you get me some?”

Arthur hesitates but he knows he’s going to give in.

“I don’t even know which one’s you’d like-”

“Any. I don’t care. Please. I’m so bored in here.”

Arthur nods, conceding the point. He’d be going stir crazy in that cell; the least he can do is let Merlin have something to read.

He deliberates over the titles for a long time in the shop. Literature’s not his forte, other than the few he read at school. Will Merlin have read all the ones famous enough for even him to recognise? But then again, they’re probably famous because they’re good, right? Good enough to read twice?

In the end he compromises and takes Jane Eyre, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and some Sherlock Holmes stories for the famous side; and Billy Budd, The Good Soldier, and Washington Square from the ones he doesn’t recognise. There’ll have to be something in there that Merlin will like.

Though why he cares so much about pleasing Merlin is a different issue altogether, and one that Arthur doesn’t want to examine too closely right now.

  
  
  
  


Merlin’s almost pathetically grateful when Arthur returns from town to carelessly drop a handful of books on his bed. And then his heart skips a beat to see Jane Eyre is one of them.

Merlin loves Jane Eyre. He first read it when he was twelve and he was entranced, even with the bits he didn’t quite understand. He got his mum to rent all the film and television adaptations she could find and watched them repeatedly. He even used to have a postcard stuck on his wall that he bought at the Brontë house in Haworth. It had his favourite quote from the book on it: 'I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.'

Merlin can appreciate the irony of reading that quote now, in his tiny cell, but it still sends the same small thrill through him as it did the first time he ever saw it. 

Arthur doesn’t understand.

“We had to do it in school, it was so boring.”

He’s sat on the table outside the cell, ostensibly fixing an old clock radio he’d found in the kitchen cupboard, but he keeps breaking off the repair attempt to talk to Merlin.

Merlin’s sat cross legged on the bed, holding the book in his hand.

“It’s not boring at all.”

“It is though. Blah blah blah I’m an orphan. Blah blah blah everyone thinks I’m stupid and wilful. Blah blah blah this hot mean guy keeps picking on me.”

“It’s about the triumph of the spirit,” Merlin says, not caring how earnest he sounds. This book is important to him and it irritates him to hear Arthur dismiss it. “Jane gets abused or ignored by everyone around her, but she stays true to herself and just carries on going. She makes happiness for herself, despite all the odds being against her.”

“Wow, over-identify much, Merlin?” Arthur says with a slight sneer.

Merlin flushes, because yes he does identify with Jane, he always has, and he hates the way Arthur makes it sound so idiotic now.

“It’s not over-identifying,” he snaps. “Everyone sees themselves in their favourite characters. You non-Magicals do it all the time, and your role models are everywhere. God forbid someone like me might want to do the same.”

Arthur looks abashed at Merlin’s outburst. He goes a bit pink behind the ears and mutters something.

“What was that?” Merlin challenges.

“Sorry, okay? I was a bit… rude.”

Merlin’s slightly taken aback at Arthur’s apology but he just gives a sort of stiff nod of acknowledgment.

“Maybe I should read it again,” Arthur says, clearly trying to be conciliatory for reasons Merlin doesn’t quite understand. But his anger gets swept aside in his eagerness for Arthur to give the book another go. 

“You should,” he says. “It’s honestly brilliant.”

A mischievous grin crosses his face.

“And it’s got a character with magic in.”

Arthur’s eyebrows shoot up.

“I may not have paid much attention in class but I’m pretty sure I’d remember that.”

“Mrs. Rochester? The so called ‘mad woman in the attic?’ You know mad used to be a synonym for magic in a lot of cases, don’t you? It’s patently obvious to me that Mr. Rochester freaked out when his new wife arrived and she turned out to be a Magical, so he locked her up.”

Arthur stares at him.

“What a load of rubbish.”

Merlin shrugs.

“Writers used to code that kind of thing all the time; it wasn’t socially acceptable to talk about magic in print until the twentieth century really.”

“Hmm, sounds like a flimsy theory,” Arthur says sceptically.

“Yeah, my English teacher thought the same. Except he was less polite about it when he ripped my essay up in front of everyone and made me turn my desk to face the wall for the rest of the lesson.”

Merlin says this quite light-heartedly and is surprised to see that Arthur looks vaguely discomfited.

“Seriously? He sounds like a real dick.”

“Yeah, well, he wasn’t the only teacher at our school that hated Magicals. But he was probably the least subtle about it,” Merlin says, shrugging.

“Did that kind of thing happen a lot?” Arthur says, and he’s completely abandoned all pretence at fixing the radio now.

“Sometimes. There were only two other Magicals in my whole school. Most teachers would just act like I wasn’t there.”

Arthur’s frowning.

“That’s harsh.”

“I didn’t mind flying under the radar sometimes. It was only a problem when the other kids would pick on me and the teachers would just look away like they couldn’t see it.”

“You got picked on?”

Merlin pauses, thinking of how best to answer that question.

It’s slightly painful to look back now and remember how excited he was to finally go to school and make the friends he’d never had before. It took him a while to realise that the kids at St. Hilda’s didn’t want to be his friend any more than the kids that played out on his street did. Having magic appeared to be the modern equivalent of being a Biblical leper. 

But primary school wasn’t too bad, the kids were at least civil in class, even if their mothers hustled them away from Merlin at the school gates, and his attempts to invite them round for tea were always refused. Secondary school was a rude awakening, however. Merlin had just about gotten used to being an overlooked loner when he made the unpleasant discovery that his new classmates actively disliked him. Being a Magical had only gotten him ignored before; now his peers were paying him entirely too much attention.

Kids wrote rude words on his locker, filled his backpack with rocks, stole his clothes from the changing room. In more extreme cases they chased him home, or cornered him on the playground and beat him up. Hunith complained to the school a few times but nothing was done about it. Teachers were always mysteriously absent when he was being pinned up against a wall or having his arm bent up his back in P.E. They only seemed to materialise in the later years, when he started fighting back. Then he could be sure of getting detention or being sent to the headmaster’s office for ‘troublemaking.’

The unfairness of it stung him bitterly at the time, and he thinks that feeling never really went away. His life experience had naturally led him to a job which was all about trying to make sure little Magical kids would never feel alone like that again.

Maybe that’s why he used to relate so much to Jane Eyre’s school days. She couldn’t catch a break either.

He shares an extremely edited version of his school experiences to Arthur, who looks distinctly uneasy by the end. It’s a look that Merlin’s starting to recognise on Arthur. 

Whenever he talks about any kind of anti-Magical prejudice or discrimination he’s faced in the past, Arthur begins to ooze discomfort. Merlin thought at first Arthur was just signalling his boredom and/or lack of caring, but he’s not so sure anymore.

Arthur looks almost… guilty. 

It ties into Merlin’s theory that Arthur hasn’t quite swallowed his father’s rhetoric hook, line, and sinker. The pathetic defences he puts up for those trashy anti-Magical books he reads alone suggests that he doesn’t believe half of what Arkstone preaches. Not for the first time, Merlin wonders how Arthur got mixed up in all this. He just doesn’t seem the type.

It’s not just prejudice that Arthur seems guilty about though. He’s never offered an explicit apology for what Val and Cenred did, but he seems very keen to reassure Merlin that he didn’t condone their actions. They’re having dinner one night when Arthur states the complete obvious: he never liked them.

“What’s not to like?” Merlin says lightly. “All of my best friends have uncontrollable rage issues.”

“Val’s always been like that,” Arthur says grimly as he jabs at his bean burger. “Anytime someone needs roughing up or threatening, Uther sends him out.”

“How can you work for a company that even employs people to do that?”

“I don’t know,” Arthur says in that same dead tone he always uses when Merlin asks about his loyalty to Arkstone. It sounds to the untrained ear like Arthur doesn’t care at all, but Merlin’s beginning to know the other man a little better now. Just the way Arthur’s gripping his fork lets Merlin know how unhappy he really is with what Arkstone does.

He decides to take pity on him for once and change the subject.

“People like Val crop up everywhere. Magicals too, to be fair. I knew a right bruiser in Washington; used to go along to the riots just to start fights and beat people up.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. God, he was a weird bloke. Really hard-core anarcho-communist, wanted the total dissolution of the state. Always quoting these mad pamphlets he downloaded from the dark web.”

“He’s one up on Val then. Not sure he can actually read.”

Merlin sniggers. 

“And Cenred, Jesus Christ,” Arthur continues, looking vaguely pleased to have amused Merlin. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Arkstone found him hanging upside down in a cave somewhere.”

Merlin goes a bit cold at the mention of Cenred and looks down at his plate. He hasn’t forgotten the feel of Cenred’s hands trailing across his skin, and he doesn’t think he will for a while. That moment had awoken a different kind of helplessness in him, one he can’t brush off as easily as he can Val’s bullying.

Arthur doesn’t seem to have noticed Merlin’s discomfort.

“I honestly think my father only keeps him on so Val can have a sidekick. He can’t exactly match Val for menace.”

“Rather be alone with Val than Cenred,” Merlin mutters and Arthur looks surprised.

“What? Why? You said Val was the one who… did the hitting.”

“Yeah. But Cenred was… he…”

Merlin can’t find the words and he doesn’t really want to talk about it anyway. He shrugs and picks up his fork again, only to see Arthur put his down with a clatter.

“What?”

“Nothing. Nothing. He just… tried to unnerve me.”

“How?”

Merlin swirls a few peas round his plate.

“Threats and stuff,” he says briefly.

“To hit you?”

Merlin wishes he’d never brought the subject up.

“No, to… touch me.”

He mumbles the last bit out and then risks a glance at Arthur. Arthur looks confused for a second and then his face darkens.

“Did he?” He asks flatly. “Touch you?”

“I… He…”

“What did he do?”

“Not what you’re thinking,” Merlin says plainly, seeing the fear in Arthur’s eyes. “Just. Groped me. A little.”

There’s a pause and then Arthur bangs his hand down hard on the table and Merlin jumps.

“The fucking prick,” Arthur says, and his voice is raw. “I knew he was a creep but I didn’t know he…”

He looks straight at Merlin.

“I should have been there to protect you.”

Merlin didn’t expect to hear that.

“I protected myself,” he says at last and Arthur looks slightly mollified.

“You hit him?”

“I screamed,” Merlin says wryly. “I do that sometimes.”

The last time had been when he was eighteen years old and his father had been shot in front of him, but he doesn’t particularly feel like sharing that with Arthur.

“He’s an animal,” Arthur says, shaking his head. “My father needs to know.”

“What’s the likelihood your father would care?” Merlin says bluntly.

“My dad’s not a monster,” Arthur snaps. “Of course he’d care if someone… if someone was…”

Merlin remembers the domestic abuse workshop and feels a sudden rush of rage at Arthur’s naivety. 

“Magicals are nearly twice as likely to be sexually assaulted as non-Magicals, and five times less likely to report it to the police,” he says angrily. “Why do you think that is? It’s because we know that the authorities don’t really care what happens to us; that the chances of us being believed or even listened to are nearly non-existent. Forgive me if I don’t assume that your father – the very man who ordered my kidnapping – would lose any sleep about the idea of Cenred raping me.” 

The moment the word rape is out of his mouth he feels sick. He wishes he could swallow it, forget that there had even been a possibility of Cenred doing that to him, but he can’t. He puts his plate on the floor instead; convinced he’ll vomit if he eats another bite.

The trauma of Cenred’s harassment is finally catching up with him. He hasn’t faced up to how truly afraid he’d been until now. He’d locked all that terror away but it’s bubbling up to the surface and he’s not ready to deal with it.

He’s aware of Arthur’s eyes on him and he turns away. He hears the chair scrape across the floor and assumes Arthur’s leaving to give him some space, so he’s surprised when he hears the keys in the cell door a second later.

Arthur doesn’t bother to lock the door behind him and Merlin takes a second to consider running, but he’s just too exhausted. Even if he makes it upstairs, he can’t get out the door, and Arthur will only drag him back here.

He wonders if that means he’s being practical, or if he’s giving up.

The bed dips as Arthur sits down next to him.

“You’re right,” Arthur says quietly. “My father probably wouldn’t care. But I care.”

“I don’t believe you,” Merlin says, too tired to put much venom behind it. 

“You have no reason to. But it’s true. I’m very sorry that Val and Cenred ever went near you.”

Finally an apology, after all this time. It doesn’t make any of this right, not even close, but the pain in Merlin’s chest eases ever so slightly.

“I was… he was…”

To Merlin’s horror, he suddenly feels tears welling up in his eyes and he forces them away. He is not crying about this. Just because Cenred said a few stupid things, just because he put his hands on Merlin’s body like he was going to do so much more…

Merlin drops his head, willing himself to calm down. He can feel Arthur’s eyes on him and he hates that he’s losing it in front of him. He’s already been exposed enough in the last three weeks, he feels like he’s been emotionally flayed. He doesn’t want Arthur here, he should just go, should just leave Merlin in peace…

He feels a tentative arm slide around him. Merlin’s so shocked that he doesn’t even think to shrug him off for a few moments. And by then the weight of Arthur’s arm is somehow more comforting than he could have imagined, and he doesn’t want to shake it off.

  
  
  
  
  


He takes a few deep breaths instead, concentrates on swallowing the lump in his throat. He finds he’s leaning into Arthur’s body and he knows it’s wrong but he’s sad and he’s worn out and maybe he wants to pretend he’s with someone who cares about him, just for a few moments.

They stay like that for quite a while until Arthur speaks again.

“Can I do anything to help?”

 _Let me go_ , Merlin wants to say, but he knows that’s not on the table. He’d like to stretch his legs, and he’d like to phone his mum, and he’d like to go outside and breathe in some fresh air, but none of those are being offered either. There’s nothing Arthur can really give him. Except…

“Stop tying me up,” Merlin says, and he holds out his chafed wrists, the rope wrapped loosely around them.

  
  
  
  


Arthur wants to make Merlin feel better, he truly does, but the ropes prevent him from being more of a flight risk than he already is.

“It’s only-” Arthur begins and Merlin cuts him off.

“It’s not ‘only’ anything. How would you know what it feels like?”

A brief image of Sophia flashes into his head, along with the mounting sense of horror he’d felt as she taped him to the chair. The panic as he’d strained against the bonds, the sensation of utter vulnerability.

He lets out a little shaky exhale but Merlin luckily doesn’t notice. He’s staring down at his hands, tugging at the knot.

“I hate being tied up. I’m already locked in a cage, isn’t that enough?”

“I try not to make it too tight,” Arthur says uncomfortably.

“Yeah, but I can feel the rope rubbing against me, all the time, whatever I do. Between that and the ankle tag and the cell it’s… you make me feel like an animal.”

Merlin sounds close to tears again and Arthur’s stomach constricts. He can’t bring himself to say no to Merlin, not after what he just heard about the full extent of Cenred’s depravity. Merlin’s hurting and he needs to feel less helpless, even if it’s only in a small way. 

Impulsively he finds himself reaching out to untie the ropes from Merlin’s wrists, tossing them to the floor.

“Okay. No more being tied up.”

“Seriously?” Merlin says, his voice slightly thick.

“Just… just don’t make me regret it, okay?”

He doesn’t honestly think in his heart of hearts that this will necessarily make it easier for Merlin to escape. Although part of him wonders if Merlin escaping would actually be the worst thing in the world.

Truth be told, Arthur wants the whole thing over and done with. He grows more and more uncomfortable with keeping Merlin here every day. 

It’s not as though he was thrilled about the thought of holding anyone hostage in the first place, but he was prepared to do it to pay off his debt to Arkstone. The fact that the hostage happens to be Merlin is where the real problem lies. Because in another time and another place, Arthur’s pretty sure that he and Merlin would be friends. Maybe even more than friends.

Merlin’s funny. He has this dry, slightly strange sense of humour that only comes out when he lets his guard down. The last few days, Merlin seems to have gotten so used to Arthur’s constant presence that he’s been making the kind of jokes and sarcastic comments that friends make to one another. And Arthur hasn’t exactly been discouraging it. In fact, he’s been… enjoying it.

Merlin’s clever, too. He has a whole host of opinions on any given subject, in the political realm and beyond it too. Arthur has to admit he even enjoys their little chats about books, which is not a subject he’s ever had much interest in before. 

But the thing that draws him in the most is that Merlin’s brave. Arthur admires courage above all else, maybe because he finds himself so lacking in it, and he can’t deny that Merlin has it in spades. It sounds like he’s been through more in twenty five years than most go through in a lifetime and he hasn’t given up yet. Even restrained and magic-less, he’s been defying Arthur at every turn, and standing up to Val and Cenred at the risk of his own wellbeing. The odds are stacked against Merlin but he keeps on fighting, and Arthur can’t help but be impressed.

They could have been friends. Had the circumstances been different, Arthur wouldn’t have hesitated. But the actual circumstances are that he’s keeping Merlin against his will, and this illusion of friendship growing between them in the last week is nothing more than a trick of the mind. Merlin talks to him out of boredom and desperation, and Arthur talks back out of guilt and loneliness. He’s pretty sure he’s not alone in feeling the odd closeness that they’ve cultivated, but that doesn’t mean it’s real. It’s a survival tactic for hostages to form connections with their captors, and Arthur suspects that’s the root of Merlin’s newfound willingness to confide in him. Merlin’s most likely the kind of person who’d find it hard to view himself as a victim, so he’s probably convinced himself of some kind of bond between them. At least that’s the only explanation Arthur can think of as to why Merlin is continuing to engage with him. It’s textbook.

There’s no textbook explanation for Arthur’s behaviour towards Merlin though. It’s hard for him to admit to himself that he likes having someone around who actually listens to him; that he’s told Merlin things he hasn’t spoken about to anyone before. The fact that Merlin will forget it all in a week’s time gives Arthur carte blanche to say the things he never thought he could. It’s freeing, and therapeutic, and somewhere in the midst of all that he’s become grateful to Merlin for being the one to hear it. Merlin’s giving him something he didn’t even know he needed until now and apparently his brain has transferred that into some kind of misplaced affection.

It’s stupid and it’s inappropriate and he resents himself for it. Is he really so pathetic that he’s trying to forge an emotional connection with a man he kidnapped? 

It’s not the whole explanation, though.

Arthur hasn’t forgotten how it felt to kiss Merlin the night of their date. Or the way his arms felt wrapped around Merlin’s body, fresh from the shower. How he noted the warmth and softness of Merlin’s skin even through his anger. How every shower since has been a fight not to let his eyes stray. And how some mornings he wakes up hard and aching and almost certain that the face in his dreams was Merlin’s.

These feelings are wrong and Arthur knows it. Not just because Merlin is a Magical and his father would kill him if he ever found out, but because Merlin is Arthur’s hostage. Arthur disabled his magic and locked him up. He has power over him, and it’s sick to even think about his attraction to him when Merlin’s being held here against his will.

And yet he feels Merlin’s eyes linger on him sometimes. Hears the almost imperceptible intake of breath when Arthur’s fingers brush up against his skin as he undoes the ropes.

The relationship between them was meant to be impersonal. But it’s not. Perhaps he was a fool to think it ever could be after he started this whole thing by asking Merlin out on a date.

Either way, he wants this to be over. Before he slips up and does something really stupid.

Like kissing Merlin.

  
  
  
  


Merlin feels slightly better with his hands untied. It’s not exactly a huge consolation in the grand scheme of things, but it’s psychologically less demeaning, and he can finally turn the pages of his books without awkwardly contorting his hands.

It’s harder to stop himself scratching at the tag with his hands untied, however. He can’t help but dig his fingers into the tender skin, trying to relieve that unbearable itch underneath the cold metal. It doesn’t work and he only ends up scratching the area red and raw. Arthur notices one day and looks horribly guilty. He doesn’t say anything but that afternoon he sets a pot of E45 on the floor of Merlin’s cell. The cream eases the itch a little and Merlin’s grateful. The rest of the time he just has to rely on the books as a distraction.

He’s finished Jane Eyre and most of the Sherlock Holmes stories, and the odd but enjoyable Washington Square. He chooses Lady Chatterley’s Lover over Billy Budd for his next one, mainly because he read about the fuss surrounding its publication before. He’s still not quite prepared for what he finds within, and his first thought is to tease Arthur about it when they’re eating dinner the next day.

Arthur’s moved one of the chairs into Merlin’s cell at his request, so he doesn’t have to sit on the bed all the time. He’s also dragged the table over to the edge of the cell, so they can eat meals in almost the same space. It’s strangely domestic, if Merlin blocks out the huge steel bars between them. 

“So. Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” Merlin says, as he eats the last bite of Arthur’s vegetarian moussaka. Arthur’s becoming a dab hand at meat-free cooking, he has to admit.

“What about it?”

Merlin grins.

“Are you trying to tell me something?”

“Eh?”

“It’s a dirty book, Arthur.”

Arthur scoffs.

“Yeah, maybe people thought it was dirty back in the olden days when everyone was still fainting at the sight of women’s ankles, but now…”

“It’s still pretty dirty,” Merlin says, not bothering to moderate the teasing tone in his voice.

“I didn’t know you were such a delicate flower. Is it making you blush, Merlin?”

Merlin doesn’t say anything in response, just opens the book to the page he earmarked and hands it through the bars.

Arthur reads for several seconds and then, hilariously, his cheeks turn pink.

“Wow, okay, that’s… yeah.”

“I didn’t know you were such a delicate flower, Arthur,” Merlin says innocently

“Alright, shut up. I didn’t know. It’s not like I intentionally bought you porn.”

“It’s not porn!” Merlin protests and Arthur laughs.

“Defending its literary merits, now?”

“You’re just a prude.”

“Definitely. I’m all for a more prudish society, actually. I’m sick of seeing women flaunting their ankles all over the place.”

Merlin laughs, long and loud. It’s not the first time Arthur’s made him laugh and he’s given up trying to suppress it. He’s just accepted the fact that it’s inescapably weird to be laughing at jokes his captor makes, and moved on. It takes more energy to pretend he doesn’t find Arthur funny.

Arthur gets this peculiar kind of look on his face when he makes Merlin laugh. Sort of proud, sort of bashful. It’s vaguely endearing.

Occasionally finding Arthur endearing is another thing Merlin’s just had to make his peace with. Along with the way he can’t help but admire the curve of Arthur’s body, the grace of his movements. Merlin justifies this by telling himself he was attracted to Arthur back when he was just Hot but Creepy. It’s only residual attraction from before, he didn’t choose it. Only an idiot would claim that Arthur wasn’t good looking on a purely aesthetic level. It doesn’t mean anything deeper than that.

They banter back and forth a bit more before Arthur asks him if he’s still in any pain from the week before.

“My side’s still a bit tender, but the bruise has gone down loads, look.”

Merlin’s raising his t-shirt before he even thinks about whether it’s a good idea to be exposing his skin like that. He doesn’t miss the way Arthur’s eyes flicker as he glances over.

But then any arousal on his face fades into grimness.

“It still looks bad,” Arthur says, and his anger in his voice is clearly not for Merlin.

“I’ve had worse,” Merlin says. He already told Arthur about the riot cop and the other times things had turned bad at protests; Arthur knows this isn’t the first beating he’s ever taken.

But his attempts to placate Arthur don’t seem to help.

“You shouldn’t have had it at all.”

“Are you admitting that Magicals like me don’t deserve the persecution your Arkstone lot throw at us?” Merlin asks wryly.

“They’re not… my lot. And Arkstone isn’t… like that.” 

“It is, though,” Merlin says. 

“No, look, Val and Cenred are loose cannons; they don’t represent the rest of us,” Arthur says.

“Arthur, you act like their presence here wasn’t even connected to you and your job,” Merlin says, frustrated. “It’s not a coincidence that your father chose Val and Cenred for Arkstone. The whole institution’s rotten.”

“Arkstone isn’t-”

“Any company that organises a kidnapping is rotten and you well know it.”

“The Institute’s not exactly a paragon of virtue either,” Arthur points out defensively. “Weren’t they funding terrorism back in the seventies?”

There were longstanding rumours that the Institute had secretly funnelled money to pro-Magical terrorist groups in its early days. Merlin doesn’t doubt that it’s possible.

“Yeah, maybe they were, and that was wrong. But we’re forty years on, Arthur. The Institute’s changed with the times. Arkstone clearly hasn’t.”

“I know that Arkstone doesn’t always promote the best policies-”

“Stop being so mealy mouthed about it! You know damn well what they do, don’t try to soften their image. It’s sickening.”

He gets to his feet, walking over to the bars, irritation mounting within him. All of his previous questions about Arthur’s motives are swirling round his mind, and he’s annoyed by how none of it makes sense.

“The worst part is, Arthur, I don’t even think you agree with them. You don’t seem to believe half the company policy you spout and you’re hardly fervent in your defence of the anti-Magical cause. I could almost understand it more if you really were a fully paid up zealot, but this wishy washy crap is just fucking confusing.”

“You don’t know anything about-”

“I know enough! I’ve met plenty of bigots in my life, and your heart just isn’t in it, I can tell that much. Which begs the question, what the fuck are you doing here?”

“I am doing the job that I was asked to do,” Arthur says doggedly.

Merlin shakes his head, infuriated.

“Not good enough. Kidnapping isn’t a job. It’s a crime. You should have said no.”

The next words are almost ripped out of Arthur’s mouth, like they physically pain him.

“I couldn’t say no. I owe a debt.”

Merlin laughs, loud and mean. 

“To who, your father? He owes you a debt, Arthur. He fucked up your childhood, warped your mind, made you feel worthless enough to accept whatever crap he threw at you.”

“You know nothing about my dad,” Arthur spits.

“And now he’s got you defending him! He really did a number on you, you know that? Takes a special kind of screwed up to stay loyal to the man who spent his whole life abusing you.”

Merlin knows he’s being cruel, and a part of him winces to see Arthur’s face crumple, the usual mask slipping to reveal someone who looks as hurt and vulnerable as an abandoned child.

But the other part of him doesn’t care. Who says he has to be nice to the man holding him hostage? Who says he has to care about the fact that Arthur had been mistreated and manipulated by the person who raised him? It’s not Merlin’s fault that Arthur’s dad was a bastard. Why does he have to always be the one taking the high road?

So he carries on instead.

“You’re an idiot if you think this’ll make him respect you. He’ll never respect you. He’ll just dangle the possibility that one day he might so you carry on doing what he says.” 

“You should stop now,” Arthur says and he gets to his feet like he might do something about it.

“Make me,” Merlin says hotly. 

Suddenly Arthur’s unlocking the door, thrusting himself inside the cell.

Merlin tenses but he raises his chin, determined not to be intimidated. 

“You shouldn’t talk about things you don’t understand,” Arthur hisses.

“You know I’m right,” Merlin says maliciously. “That’s why you’re so mad.”

“Shut up, Merlin.”

Arthur’s voice is low and dangerous, and Merlin knows he should stop now but there’s a part of him that just wants to keep going.

“You know I’m right,” he repeats, lip curling into a sneer.

“I said, shut up!” Arthur growls.

Suddenly Merlin finds himself pushed back against the cell bars, Arthur pinning him in place, a hand at his throat.

For a second or two they just breathe; the both of them. Arthur’s so close to him, he can smell the sharp tang of his sweat, feel the heat radiating off him in waves. He waits for the blow but it never comes. Arthur seems frozen in place, eyes burning into Merlin’s. The hand on his throat isn’t gripping, it’s just resting there, against his exposed neck. It’s almost… possessive.

Merlin can feel his heart hammering in his chest, he imagines he can feel Arthur’s own pulse throb at the point where their skin makes contact. He can’t keep holding Arthur’s gaze, it’s too intense; he feels like his whole being is on display. He takes a deep juddery breath and Arthur’s eyes flicker momentarily down to his chest, like he wants to see the way Merlin’s frame expands and contracts with every inhale and exhale.

Time stops for a minute.

Then Arthur’s fingers stroke very slowly across Merlin’s throat. 

Merlin surges forward and meets Arthur’s lips with his own. He half remembers a drunken kiss in the moonlight not three weeks ago, but years have passed since then and there’s nothing hesitant or gentle about the way he claims Arthur’s mouth now. He forces his tongue between the slightly parted lips, savouring the way Arthur gasps, the way the hand drops from his throat to flutter at his hip instead.

It’s that tentative little touch at his side that floods him with rage, sharp and immediate. Why is Arthur unsure now, when a minute ago he looked ready to end Merlin’s life? Where’s his bravado, his arrogance? Merlin can’t fight back against tenderness; he needs a monster to rail at. 

Without breaking the kiss he pulls Arthur towards his body, smashing their hips together. Another quick movement and he’s reversed their positions, pinning Arthur against the bars in front of him. He brings up his hand to fist in Arthur’s hair, twisting at the roots until Arthur grunts in pain. Then Merlin’s biting at his mouth, swallowing down the noises Arthur makes, nipping at his lower lip until he can taste blood, hot and sudden. 

Merlin is so angry, so fucking angry about being kidnapped and threatened and held here; about what Arthur and men like Arthur have done to him all his life. He wants to hurt Arthur and he wants to fuck Arthur and he wants to hold Arthur close to his body and breathe him in.

The intensity of his feelings scares him so he grinds up against Arthur again, pushing their hips together, trying to force Arthur to hit him, to shove him off, to do something…

But Arthur only moans, quietly, with a mouthful of blood and a dazed look in his half-closed eyes. He tries to pull back a little but Merlin holds his head in place, giving his hair a little tug to let him know he’s not the one in charge anymore, Merlin is now, and he can make Arthur pay if he wants to.

  
  
  
  
  


Arthur doesn’t object. He goes passive in Merlin’s grip, opening up his mouth to let Merlin plunder it with his tongue. Merlin’s thrusting up against his crotch now, like he’s trying to fuck him through their clothing, and Arthur meets each harsh impact with only the faintest of noises. He can feel Arthur getting hard; feel his own cock straining at his jeans. Merlin releases his lips to suck on his neck, applying pressure until little marks raise on Arthur’s skin, vividly red. Arthur doesn’t object, his head is thrown back against the bars, eyes shut. Merlin doesn’t like that, Arthur’s not allowed to disconnect from this, so he rams his hips forward hard and Arthur’s eyes fly open, looking straight into his own.

Merlin freezes. 

Arthur looks… He doesn’t know how Arthur looks, but whatever he can read in those piercing eyes makes him want to take a step back and think about what he’s doing for a second.

This is all wrong.

He uncurls his fist from Arthur’s hair, wincing to feel how tightly his hand was clenched. He’s in the process of backing away when suddenly Arthur’s finger hooks into the belt loop on his jeans. He tugs Merlin forward and back onto his lips, and this time he’s the one to slip his tongue into Merlin’s mouth, to pull him flush up against his body.

Merlin can’t object, the anger’s draining away but the heat is still there and he needs this, so badly. He start thrusting again, more rhythmic this time, less mindless; although the animalistic part of him is still awake and growling, still yearning to bend Arthur over the bed and fuck him till he’s sated. He compromises by latching his teeth onto Arthur’s neck, not biting hard but biting all the same, leaning into Arthur as he jerks his hips fitfully.

He lets out a groan when he feels Arthur’s hand slide down to undo the button on his jeans, yanking the zip down and reaching inside his boxers to grasp at his aching cock. It’s too much, it’s too far, at least with their clothes on they can still lay claim to being gripped by some sort of temporary insanity, but this… 

Arthur’s hand is hot and increasingly slick with Merlin’s pre-cum and there’s no denying this now, they’ve crossed the line for good, so Merlin gives way to the madness and tugs at Arthur’s jeans until he can stick his hand inside. 

The angle is all wrong, there can be no finesse, but neither of them care as they rut into each other’s palms, sweat soaked and panting like animals. Arthur is making little choked moans as Merlin works him up and down, his forehead coming down to rest on Merlin’s shoulder as he slowly loses control. Merlin kisses his hair, turns sideways to lick at his ear even as he feels the familiar pressure building within that tells him his release is not far off. He strips Arthur’s cock faster, wanting to make him finish first, so he can win whatever fucked up game they’re playing now. He tastes success when Arthur stiffens against him, whimpering Merlin’s name as his cock spasms and pulses out its load in Merlin’s hand. But it doesn’t feel like victory until a minute later when Merlin grips onto Arthur’s shirt and comes with a shudder that wracks his whole body, a soft cry falling from his lips.

They’re still for a moment, leaning against each other. Then Merlin withdraws his hand from Arthur’s underwear, still sticky with come, and brings it up to his mouth. He watches Arthur’s eyes widen as he licks a deliberate line across his palm, tasting Arthur’s spend on his tongue.

His suspicion that Arthur’s never one to back down from a challenge is confirmed when Arthur releases his now limp cock with one last stroke, and then draws his hand up to his own mouth to lick it clean. 

It’s the hottest thing that Merlin’s ever seen, and it’s also so intimate that he suddenly wants to cry.

What had all this been for?

They aren’t boyfriends, they aren’t lovers, they aren’t even strangers meeting in a momentary tryst. They’re a hostage and a captor. Merlin is being held against his will, and Arthur’s the one holding him. 

Is this Stockholm Syndrome? How has he succumbed so quickly to the person he’s supposed to hate? 

Merlin thinks about their first meeting, and the dinner out, and the kiss near the van. He’d liked Arthur then, had wanted him then.

That should have changed after everything that had happened, but there was still some small part of him that carried on wanting. And he couldn’t understand why.

There had to be something else, some deeper connection that would make this burning attraction seem right, make the guilt and shame go away.

Moved by an urgent need to prove that this is something more, that he hasn’t completely lost his mind, Merlin starts taking off his clothes. He peels off his t-shirt and throws it into the corner, then shucks off his already loosened jeans. He meets Arthur’s eyes as he pulls down his boxers, stepping out of them slowly and then standing still. Stripped bare, completely vulnerable to Arthur’s eyes. His only adornment the art on his skin; the mark of his father on his chest. He lets Arthur see it all.

_This is me._

_Look at me, touch me._

_Know me._

Arthur’s eyes drink him in. He looks how Merlin feels – excited, and overcome, and afraid. He takes one halting step towards Merlin.

The kiss is quiet, if a kiss can be so. Their lips barely touching. Their bodies drawn together. 

Then Merlin’s reaching forward, scrabbling at the hem of Arthur’s shirt, wanting to see all of him too…

A hand stays him.

He looks up at Arthur and sees a shadow pass over his face.

“Please,” Merlin says, aching without knowing why.

A tremor passes through Arthur and he shakes his head once, twice.

“I- I can’t.” 

Then Arthur’s gone and Merlin’s left naked in his cell, sweat rapidly cooling on his skin.


	7. Chapter Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for graphic violence and a verbal rape threat (not followed through)

When Arthur gets up the next morning, the first thing he sees in the mirror is his own swollen lip. Everything about the night before comes back to him in a rush and he can’t face his own reflection a moment longer.

He can hardly believe what happened. If it weren’t for his lip, he’d think it was a dream he had. There was no justification for it; no way he could pretend it was a part of some greater plan to subdue or manipulate Merlin. There had been nothing strategic or premeditated about the heat that had coursed through him last night; the desperate want and desire that clouded his senses.

And then the sudden comedown. Seeing Merlin expose himself like that and knowing that he could never do the same. The scar on his stomach wasn’t the only thing standing in the way of truly letting himself be vulnerable with another human being.

The look on Merlin’s face when he had walked away…

He regrets leaving him like that. But then he imagines what Uther would say if knew what had happened and his blood runs cold.

He takes Merlin’s breakfast down earlier than usual, praying he’ll still be asleep and Arthur won’t have to face him. He tiptoes into the cellar, quieter than he’s ever been. Merlin doesn’t wake as he unlocks the cell and sets the breakfast tray just inside the door, as soundlessly as possible.

Arthur takes a second to study the other man. He’s lying facing the bars, chin tucked in to his body. The blanket had slipped down to his waist and he’s shivering slightly. Arthur frowns, wondering if Merlin needs another blanket down here, if he’s warm enough at night. He’s walking over to readjust the cover before he can even think about what he’s doing, and he stops dead when he does.

What is going on here? At least he could pass last night off as some kind of crazed fumble, but it’s the cold light of day now and the way he’s just pulled the blanket up to wrap around Merlin’s shoulders is an undeniably tender action.

There’d been tenderness last night too, though. That final kiss… 

Arthur shakes his head, leaves the cell. Once upstairs he decides to get out of the house altogether. Uther will be calling in a few hours anyway; he may as well go into town and wait for him. He can’t stay here right now, he feels trapped.

When he gets to town he settles on the top floor of a narrow, chintzy little café where he’ll be able to hear anyone coming.

He flips open his laptop and scans the BBC news headlines first, as he always does, to see if there’s anything new about Merlin’s kidnapping. But there’s nothing there and he’s about to click off the site when he sees a sub-heading under the politics section.

**MP for Halifax Makes Passionate Speech Against Microchipping**

Warily, Arthur clicks onto the article.

_Fellowship MP for Halifax Mordred Barrett made an impassioned speech at a fundraising rally in Manchester yesterday calling for an end to anti-magical regulation. A week before parliament votes on the proposal to outlaw microchipping of magic users, Barrett urged his colleagues to “put aside prejudice” and vote for “a Britain in which all people are valued and respected.” Although Barrett made no direct reference to the kidnapping of Merlin Emrys in his speech, it is believed that…_

Arthur doesn’t bother to read past that point. He’s seen enough to know that Mordred has apparently come out swinging in favour of ignoring the ransom note. And that Uther will be very unhappy indeed.

As though summoned by Arthur’s thoughts, a text message from Uther appears in his inbox.

“Call me. We need to go over some things.”

Arthur heaves a sigh, and dials his father’s number.

He’s lucky that his floor of the café stays empty as Uther keeps him on the phone for over two hours. He spends the first hour making Arthur recount pretty much every single thing that’s happened since he arrived at the house (unsurprisingly Arthur’s version of events is highly edited). After that, he makes Arthur go over practically every Arkstone protocol that exists, and then starts quizzing him on magical containment strategy. It’s bizarre, he hasn’t had to know some of this stuff for years and it’s beyond irritating when Uther tries to school him on something he learnt when he was ten years old.

Eventually, he’s had enough.

“I should be getting back to the house, if there’s nothing else,” he puts in when Uther finally pauses for longer than two seconds.

“Just one more thing,” Uther says. “There’s been an unfortunate development.”

“Barrett’s speech?” Arthur asks resignedly.

“So you’ve already seen it?” Uther sounds mildly surprised, as though he thinks Arthur spends his time on the internet playing Farmville on Facebook or something.

“Yes,” Arthur says, a little testily. 

Uther’s tone is suddenly brisk.

“Well you know that this kind of insolence can’t go unpunished. His lot are clearly goading us. They need a reminder of who they’re playing with.”

Arthur doesn’t venture a suggestion; he knows his father isn’t asking for ideas. Arthur wouldn’t be trusted to make one anyway. 

“What kind of reminder?”

“A visual one,” Uther says briskly. “I trust you’ve already found the video camera and tripod in the cupboard below the stairs?”

“Yes,” Arthur lies fluently.

“Good. Set it up and record yourself giving the boy a good beating. Then upload it and email it to me, I’ll see that the Institute gets it and the media too. Should help them remember where their priorities lie.”

Arthur barely hears the last few words; a sort of sick haze has engulfed him.

“Is that really necessary?” He asks, fighting to keep his tone even. “Seems like Barrett was just sounding off.”

“It was an act of defiance and we will be weakened if we don’t respond in kind.” 

“Wouldn’t that just be stooping to their level?”

“It’s called fighting fire with fire, Arthur, and it’s more than necessary at this stage.” Uther’s voice is dangerously low. 

“Yeah but-”

“Enough!” Uther unexpectedly roars down the line. 

Arthur prepares himself for the lecture of a lifetime but when Uther speaks again, his voice is strangely calm.

“I had hoped you’d step up to the plate, for once. It gives me no pleasure to be proved right in this instance.”

“What do you mean, proved right?”

“I knew you’d make excuses, try to dodge your responsibilities. So I put a back-up plan in place.”

There’s a sick weight forming in Arthur’s stomach.

“What kind of back-up plan?”

“I sent Val and Cenred instead.”

“Sent?”

Arthur’s already on his feet, shoving his laptop into his bag, running toward the stairs.

Uther can clearly hear him scrabbling because he says:

“You’re too late; they should have arrived by now.”

“You were keeping me talking,” Arthur hisses as he bolts out of the café, ignoring the shocked faces of the wait staff.

“I wouldn’t have had to do that if I could have trusted you to follow my instructions.”

Uther sounds totally unrepentant and suddenly Arthur can’t handle talking to him for a second longer. He hangs up, breaking into a sprint as he heads towards the car.

His heart thuds in his ears all the way back to the house, his grip on the steering wheel so tight his hands hurt.

It’s a thirty minute drive and he hates every second of it.

_Too long, too long, too long._

He curses himself for not knowing Uther was up to something, why else would he have stayed on the phone for so long? It’s not as though he’s ever wanted to spend that much time with Arthur before.

_Idiot, idiot, idiot._

He drives as fast as he legally can, trying to focus on the road and cut off his thoughts; which are all around Merlin and what Val and Cenred could do to him, given the chance.

When he finally sees the house in the distance, he increases his speed to over eighty, there’s no-one around for miles anyway. He nearly skids and crashes when he reaches the pebble terrain but he doesn’t care. He’s out the car and running towards the house, bursting in and rushing towards the open cellar door and down the stairs.

At first all he can see is Val and Cenred, with their backs to him. They turn around, parting slightly to reveal…

Merlin’s lying on the floor, curled onto his side. There’s blood pouring from a wound on his hairline. His left hand is cradled to his chest, two of the fingers bent at sick angles. His eyes are half-open, unseeing, dazed with pain.

He looks small. And fragile. And so far from the all-powerful threat that Uther always said Magicals were.

When Arthur speaks, his voice is like he’s never heard it before.

“Get out of my house.”

Cenred giggles involuntarily and then stops, like he’s just beginning to understand the look on Arthur’s face. But Val squares up to him.

“Why? Because we did our jobs when you couldn’t?” 

“Get out of my house,” Arthur says again, and it’s very quiet.

The sneer is still on Val’s face but Cenred tugs at his arm slightly.

“Val. We have to deliver the film to London anyway.”

“No rush,” Val says, eyes fixed on Arthur. 

“If you don’t leave right now,” Arthur says, slowly and deliberately. “I will make you regret it.”

Val’s face twists into something ugly.

“You’re becoming a liability, mate. Anyone would think you cared about the little Magical freak.”

Arthur can’t say what he wants to say, which is that Merlin isn’t a freak, that he hasn’t done anything wrong, he never had, that maybe they were the ones in the wrong all this time. He can’t because if he says that they’ll go straight to Uther and he’ll be replaced in hours. He has to play it tactically. He has to act the big man.

He stands up to his full height, puffing out his chest.

“This is my operation. You understand me? My fucking operation. I will do it my own way or I won’t fucking do it at all.”

“You didn’t-”

“I brought us this fucking far, didn’t I?” Arthur’s voice is rising on every word. “I knocked him out, tagged him, brought him up here, kept him alive. Everything Uther asked me to. I would have done this too and I bet it would have been a damn sight cleaner and more efficient than your brand of indiscriminate thuggery Valiant.”

Val steps forward, eyes flashing, but Arthur refuses to quail.

“My father shouldn’t have brought you in. I don’t want you here. I don’t like you.”

His voice is cold, dangerous.

“So you better leave now, before I really lose my temper.”

“If you think-”

“Val, let’s just fucking go,” Cenred interrupts. “HQ’s expecting us. Come on.”

He’s taken the memory card from the camera and he’s waving it in front of Val, shooting nervous glances at Arthur.

Val’s still staring him down, but there’s a tiny bit of fear in his eyes, Arthur can see it.

He holds his gaze, steely-eyed, and Val is the first to look away.

“Fine, whatever.”

They’re nearly at the top of the stairs when Val gets his parting shot in.

“You’re as pathetic as Emrys, mate. You deserve each other.”

Arthur nearly goes after him then, rage coursing through him, but he forces himself to remember who the priority is here. It’s the injured man lying on the floor so he says nothing and waits for the cellar door to slam behind them. 

He listens for the front door to open and close, then a further twenty seconds to hear the sound of the car driving away before he lets himself move.

He goes straight to Merlin, dropping onto his knees beside him. He can’t tell if Merlin knows he’s there, his eyes are still completely unfocused.

“Merlin? Merlin, it’s okay, they’ve gone now.”

Arthur is already scanning Merlin’s form, trying to figure out which injury to prioritise.

“I need you to tell me where it hurts.”

Merlin mumbles something but Arthur can’t hear it so he leans in.

“What?”

“Pl- please…”

“Please what?” Arthur says urgently. God, there’s so much blood.

“Please don…”

Merlin’s words are very slurred, Arthur wonders if he’s concussed.

“D-don’t… please don’t hurt me…”

Arthur tenses.

“I’m not… I would never…”

He doesn’t think Merlin understands; he reaches out a hand to touch Merlin’s shoulder and the man shies away, trying to curl in on himself.

“No,” he croaks out.

“Merlin, it’s me, it’s Arthur, I won’t hurt you. It wasn’t me before… it wasn’t me…”

It’s no use. Merlin seems to be trying to make himself as small as possible, although even the slightest movement obviously pains him. Arthur doubts Merlin can even recognise him right now, let alone make the distinction between him and the men who were beating him before. 

He can’t fix that right now. He has to concentrate on the physical and worry about the mental later.

“Merlin,” he says, as calmly as he can. “I need to check where you’re hurt. Can I do that?”

Merlin doesn’t respond but he half raises his uninjured hand, as if to protect his head.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Arthur says in the same clear, even tone. “I’m just going to make sure you’re not injured.”

Arthur’s been taught enough about first aid that he can at least do a basic check. The problem is getting close enough to Merlin to look him over without scaring him.

He decides to announce everything he does before he does it, in the hope that some part of Merlin comprehends. But first he pulls his jumper off and tucks it under Merlin’s head, to try and give him some modicum of comfort.

“I’m just going to check and see if you hit your head,” he says softly. He starts feeling around Merlin’s head, fingers coming away sticky with blood as they brush up against the gash in his hairline. Arthur can’t tell how bad it is, whether Merlin’s exhibiting symptoms of concussion or just shock.

He resolves to come back to that later and not to let Merlin fall asleep in the meantime.

Next he decides to check if Merlin’s breathing is okay, make sure that he doesn’t have a punctured lung or anything like that.

He doesn’t want to touch him unnecessarily so he just listens for a few moments; Merlin’s breaths are ragged but they don’t sound constrained.

“Can you breathe alright?” He asks softly.

He doesn’t exactly receive a nod in return but there’s some small sign of assent there that tells him he’s probably right in his assessment. He files it away to check on again when Merlin’s slightly calmer.

The fingers are the next obvious port of call, but Merlin still has his left hand curled protectively into his side.

“Can I see your hand, Merlin?” Arthur asks steadily.

Merlin shakes his head almost imperceptibly, drawing the damaged appendage further into his chest.

“I will need to look at it at some point so I can make sure it heals properly,” Arthur says, hoping to coax Merlin into complying.

He reaches out tentatively and Merlin whimpers, drawing back as much as he can. Arthur freezes guiltily.

“Alright, alright.”

He does a quick check of the rest of Merlin, able to satisfy himself that there doesn’t appear to be any obvious broken bones or bleeding. Internal injuries are something that he can’t judge; he needs Merlin to come back to himself and tell him where it hurts. But he doesn’t know how to get through to him.

He thinks for a minute or two and then decides direct communication is the only way.

“Merlin, I need to get you clean so I can patch you up.”

Merlin doesn’t respond.

“To do that, I have to get you upstairs. Which means I’ll need to carry you.”

Merlin shakes his head.

“Don’t… don’t touch me…” he rasps.

“Listen to me Merlin, just focus on my voice for a second.”

Arthur pauses, unsure how to go on.

“I’m sorry this happened. If I’d been here I would have stopped it. I promise you that I didn’t have anything to do with it, and I don’t want to hurt you any further. I only want to help.”

Merlin’s eyes flicker slightly, and then look up to meet Arthur’s, just for a second.

“Will you let me help?”

There’s a long silence.

Just when Arthur’s bracing himself to lift Merlin anyway, and deal with the reaction, Merlin uncurls his body slightly.

“Yes,” he whispers.

A wave of protectiveness hits Arthur, sudden and fierce. He finds himself overwhelmed by the fact that Merlin’s choosing to trust him, when so far Arthur’s brought nothing but pain into his life.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay, wait right here. I’ll get everything ready.”

 

He runs up to the bathroom, taking the stairs three at a time. He has to force himself to be patient as he watches the water rise, adding only the tiniest drop of Radox as he doesn’t want to irritate Merlin’s wounds. He knocks the electric shaver into the water in his haste and fishes it out, swearing. Then before he knows what he’s doing, he’s hurled it against the wall, where it splinters into little pieces.

He has to take several deep breaths after that. Anger will not help Merlin right now.

Once he’s calmed a little, he gets his medical supply kit out and takes it into the bedroom, laying a clean towel over the bed. When the bath is full and he’s checked that the temperature is to his exact satisfaction, he races back down to the basement.

Merlin’s eyes are closed and for one heart-stopping moment Arthur thinks he might have died, just like that, and all because Arthur left him alone. But when he thuds over, Merlin’s eyelids flicker again and Arthur exhales in relief. 

He lifts him up incredibly carefully, trying his best not to touch anything painful, though it seems like an impossible task. He holds him bridal style, resting Merlin’s head against his shoulder, trying to keep him as close to his body as possible. The journey up to the bathroom is frustratingly slow, Arthur has to be so careful not to bang Merlin against anything, not to trip and drop him.

  
  
  
  
  


When they make it to the bathroom he props Merlin up on the floor as best he can.

“Merlin? I’ve run a bath for you, is that alright?”

Merlin gives a sort of half-nod, as best as he seems able.

“Can I undress you?” Arthur asks very gently.

He needs to do this because Merlin’s in no state to do it for himself, but at the same time he knows he can’t if Merlin refuses. It would be too much of a violation, especially after what he’d already suffered today. 

There’s an agonising pause.

Merlin nods again.

Arthur smiles in what he hopes is a reassuring way.

“Okay. Okay. I’m just gonna-”

He inches over to Merlin and looks at the t-shirt. Given the state of Merlin’s hand, forcing him to lift his arms would be agony. He decides to rip it instead. He takes hold of it at the collar and is grateful for the cheap purchase he made when it tears easily in two. He rips the sleeves as well and then eases it off Merlin’s body. He’s as careful as he can be but Merlin still winces in pain.

The last bruises Val inflicted on Merlin’s torso are still faintly visible, but Arthur’s disgusted to see they’re almost overwhelmed by new, more vivid marks. He feels along Merlin’s ribs, miserably aware how recent the last time was he had to do this, and concludes that at least two are probably broken.

“Bad?” Merlin suddenly croaks out and Arthur almost jumps out of his skin.

“Not too bad,” he says, wanting to reassure him but also not wanting to lie. “I can tape them up if you like, they should heal fine.”

Merlin seems to accept this and Arthur remembers that he’s had broken ribs before.

It helps a bit, remembering that. Merlin’s not as fragile as he looks right now. He’s overcome attacks like this before and Arthur hopes he’ll be able to do it again.

The next part is more awkward. 

“Right. I’ll just…”

He reaches towards Merlin’s waist slowly, so as not to startle him. Merlin meets his eyes for a second before giving him another weak nod, which Arthur knows is as much permission as he can expect.

Not wanting to make a production out of it, Arthur tugs down Merlin’s jogging bottoms as quickly as he can while also being mindful of his injuries. Fortunately there’s not much to see on his legs, save a bleeding scrape on his left ankle.

There’s also no blood trickling down his legs or staining the seat of his boxers. Arthur didn’t think Val and Cenred would have gone that far, but after what Merlin had told him about Cenred… The relief he feels is sudden and immediate. 

It gives him the strength to take the last step; removing his boxer briefs. He averts his eyes as much as he can as he eases them down Merlin’s legs and tosses them aside. He catches a glimpse of a blackening bruise on the side of Merlin’s hip though and he has to bite back a hiss of anger. There’ll be time for anger later.

He can’t quite meet Merlin’s eyes but from the stolen glances at his face, Merlin doesn’t look embarrassed. Arthur guesses that Merlin’s gone beyond embarrassment, that the pain is overriding all other emotions. It makes it easier for Arthur in the moment but he hopes that Merlin doesn’t hate him later.

As gently as before he picks Merlin up again and slowly lowers him into the bath. He sits Merlin up against the side, hand hovering in case Merlin suddenly slides under the water.

“Temperature okay?”

Merlin nods. 

“Okay, I’m gonna use the flannel if that’s alright. Tell me if something hurts too much and I’ll stop.”

He cleans the cut on Merlin’s hairline first, dabbing away at the partially dried blood until he can see the thin slash better. It’s not big enough to need stitches, thank God; Arthur would have attempted them but it would have been a messy job. Supporting Merlin’s head, he brings it forward slightly to feel around the back for any bumps. There doesn’t seem to be any, although he resolves to keep an eye on Merlin for concussion anyway.

He moves on to the rest, carefully swiping the flannel across the cuts that litter Merlin’s body. Merlin’s let his mangled hand slide under the water, but he’s still holding it stiff against his chest. Arthur thinks there’s not much he can do for it until he takes him in the other room to fix him up. 

The bathwater is clear enough that he can see the whole of Merlin’s body, but it oddly becomes less awkward the more he washes him. It’s not a sexual situation; he’s caring for someone who needs it, and Merlin’s nakedness makes him feel oddly protective.

He decides to wash Merlin’s hair while he’s in there because chances are Merlin will be too sore to shower again for a few days. He finds a little plastic jug in the cupboard under the sink and holds it up.

“Can I wash your hair?” He asks softly, not sure why he’s lowering his voice.

“Yeah,” Merlin says, equally as soft.

Arthur dips the jug into the water and pours it onto Merlin’s head. Then he grabs the grapefruit shampoo and begins to slowly massage it in, taking care to avoid the hairline cut. It feels strangely intimate to be shampooing someone else’s hair in this way; he’s never done anything remotely like it before. 

Somewhere in the midst of this he decides to speak.

“I didn’t know they were coming. If I’d have been here… I never would have let them.” 

He rinses Merlin’s hair clean, trickling the water over him so as not to overwhelm him.

“You have no reason to believe me but... I never would have let them, Merlin. And I’m sorry.”

There’s a prolonged silence.

“They had keys,” Merlin whispers finally.

“From my father,” Arthur says, nearly tripping over his words in a rush to explain. “He set it all up, he… He didn’t tell me until it was too late. I drove as fast as I could but…”

Suddenly he’s reliving the moment he ran into the cellar; that heart-stopping few seconds when all he could see was Merlin lying on the floor and he couldn’t be sure if he was alive or dead.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, and he’s choked up; stopped short by guilt and regret.

This was all his fault. He’d locked Merlin up and taken away his magic, he’d left him completely defenceless against Val and Cenred’s attack for a second time.

“I believe you,” Merlin says hoarsely. 

Arthur’s hands still in the process of rinsing Merlin’s hair. He looks down and Merlin meets his eyes. He doesn’t look afraid of Arthur anymore; he looks like he’s finally coming back to himself.

Arthur could weep with relief.

But he doesn’t, he just keeps rinsing Merlin’s hair until all the soap is gone. Being as gentle as he can. 

An apology in every movement.

  
  
  
  


Merlin’s sat cross legged on the bed when the door opens. When he woke up in the morning, his breakfast was just inside the cell door and Arthur was nowhere in sight. He must have gone out because there’s been no noise from upstairs since then. Merlin’s relieved, because he doesn’t know how to face him yet.

He can’t stop thinking about the night before, and how Arthur’s mouth tasted against his, and the way they moved against each other. And how he bared himself, and the way it felt when Arthur walked away.

He’s never been more confused in his life. One part of him is so guilty and ashamed he can hardly bear to think about it. He actually got off with the man holding him prisoner. Took pleasure from his body. He’s either idiotic or sick in the head.

The other part of him doesn’t even regret it, and that’s the part he can’t understand at all. 

When he hears the cellar door open, he still hasn’t decided what to say to Arthur. He takes a few deep breaths, and steels himself. He has to face this, one way or another.

Then he hears two voices instead of one and his blood runs cold.

“Pretty Boy!” A voice sings out and his hands start trembling. But he didn’t back down before and he’s not backing down now so he gets to his feet and turns to face them.

They’re here, both of them, and he has no idea why.

Cenred looks as mocking as always, but Val’s face is serious. Like he’s got a job to do.

Suddenly Merlin wonders if they’ve come to kill him and the whole world lurches slightly. His knees threaten to give way but he forces himself to stay upright. If he dies now, he wants it to be on his feet. Not cowering away, or begging for mercy.

“Here to kill me?” He asks, and he’s proud that his voice rings out strong.

“No,” Val says indifferently. “But you might wish we had soon.”

If anything, that only makes Merlin more afraid. 

Cenred starts towards the bars but Val clicks his fingers at him.

“Set it up, first.”

And Merlin watches as Cenred takes a video camera out of his pocket. 

He’s not stupid. If they’re filming him, then it’s probably something to send to the Institute or the police. And he doubts he’s just going to be holding up a newspaper this time.

“There’s a tripod upstairs, he told us,” Cenred says, fiddling with the camera.

“No. You film it. It’ll look better that way.”

Val’s eyes are sweeping the room.

“Over here. The light’s better.”

Cenred dutifully goes to stand by the wall and looks through the viewfinder. He grabs a chair, moves it into the space. He nods.

“Okay.”

Then they both turn as one back to the cell and Merlin takes an involuntary step back.

“Ready for your close-up, Emrys?” Val says quietly, and his tone sends a shiver down Merlin’s spine.

Did Arthur know they were coming? Why didn’t he tell Merlin? Why did he leave him alone to face them?

Maybe he doesn’t know. But Cenred’s fishing a key out of his pocket, and fitting it into the cell door lock, and how could he have one of them if Arthur hadn’t given it to him?

He backs away as far as he can, until he hits the wall. Cenred merely laughs as he opens the door.

“Don’t get coy now, Pretty. This is happening, one way or another.”

“What’s happening?” Merlin asks, even though he knows better than to engage with them. But he can’t think rationally right now, a slow panic is working its way through his whole body.

“One of your mates got a bit cocky and said some things he shouldn’t have. So now we have to send him a little reminder of what happens when Magicals get above their station.”

With that Cenred advances on him. Merlin lashes out the moment he’s within striking distance, but Cenred easily deflects and grabs hold of Merlin’s wrists.

“He’s not tied up anymore, Val. Arthur’s slipping.”

“Or Arthur found a better use for his hands,” Val says, and they both laugh uproariously. It hits far too close to home for Merlin after the events of last night, and he snarls, trying to pull free from Cenred’s grasp.

But Cenred barely falters, dragging him from the cell as though Merlin’s nothing more troublesome than an unruly child. When they get to the back wall, Cenred pushes him down into the chair and stands over him so he can’t get up. Merlin kicks out with his legs and Cenred jumps back.

“I’d stop that if I were you,” he says.

Merlin kicks out harder, making satisfying contact with Cenred’s shin. But he only has a second to enjoy his victory before Cenred leans in close, pressing Merlin’s legs against the chair.

“Listen up, _sweetheart_ , we’re on a limited time frame here,” he murmurs. “But if you don’t behave yourself, Val just might let me take five minutes out of our busy schedule to fuck some manners into you.”

Merlin goes instantly, utterly still. For a moment he forgets how to breathe.

“Suits me either way,” Cenred says, eyes locked on Merlin’s. “What’ll it be?”

And he steps back.

Merlin stays completely motionless, as though the slightest twitch will seal his fate. All of his extremities have gone numb, it’s like ice is running through his veins.

“Good boy,” Cenred says in that same low voice. Val appears behind him, pulling on a balaclava.

“Let’s go,” he says and cracks his knuckles. Cenred grabs the camera from the table and holds it up.

“Wait,” Merlin says, panicked. “Wait a second-”

Val rolls his eyes disgustedly.

“Take it like a man, Emrys.”

He steps forward and Merlin leans back as far as he can. The words of a spell form automatically on his lips and he almost cries when he remembers magic is of no use now. 

“Does Arthur know you’re here?” He asks desperately.

Val bares his teeth in a grin.

“Course he does. But he doesn’t like getting his hands dirty, see? So he’s left us to it.”

Merlin wants to say he doesn’t believe them, but that would be a lie. He only has a few seconds to feel the sting of betrayal before he hears the ping of the camera turning on and Val’s fist smashes into the side of his face.

He falls off the chair, hits the ground hard. His head smacks off the concrete floor and the room spins, tilts. He lies there dazed for a few seconds until instinct tells him to move. He’s only just managed to raise himself to his hands and knees when the kick to the stomach comes.

Merlin drops again, gasping. There’s not enough time to catch his breath before the second kick comes, landing squarely on his back. He howls in agony, even as some small part of him warns against putting on a show for the camera. But he can’t help it. He’s not in control. The pain is too much; it drives all other thoughts from his head.

There’s blood dripping down the side of his face. He blinks it out of his eye, hauls himself up onto his elbows and tries to crawl away. He doesn’t know where he’s going, all he knows is that he has to move, and quickly. He drags himself forward, sobbing a little, and then a hand grabs hold of him and throws him onto his back. A booted foot drives into his hip and he cries out helplessly. 

A man in a balaclava looms over him, strange and terrifying. He puts his arms up, to try and push the vision away, and the man grabs hold of one. Merlin whimpers, trying to pull it back, but the man grips tight. Merlin wants to kick him but his legs won’t work, they twitch uselessly. The man takes hold of his index finger.

He hears the crack before he feels it. It’s like a gunshot in the quiet room and when the pain kicks in, it’s as though he’s been momentarily deafened. He wails like a little boy and closes his eyes, consciousness slipping away from him. 

The second crack brings him back to full awareness. This time he has no throat left to scream and he keens instead, lost and afraid and willing to do anything to make the agony stop. 

Someone must be listening because there’s no more after that. He’s left to drift for a while, vision blurry. A man bends down next to him, shoving an object close to his face, but he can’t tell what it is.

He comes in and out. He hears voices at one point but no-one’s next to him, no-one’s hurting him right now, and he takes the chance to curl in on himself as much as he can. He brings his shattered fingers to his chest, trying to shield them with his body. 

Then there’s a different kind of noise in the background, like footsteps, followed by a lot of shouting. The sound is distorted and far away. He gives up trying to make sense of it and lets his eyes half close again. 

It’s an effort to breathe.

Then someone drops to their knees beside him and he panics again. They’re talking to him and he doesn’t know what they want, and God he’s in so much pain already, can’t they leave him alone? He wants to be brave but he’s had all he can take, so he opens his mouth and begs them not to hurt him anymore.

The man doesn’t care, he reaches out towards him and Merlin shies away as far as he can, braced for the agony to come. But there isn’t any blow, and Merlin tries to disappear into himself, to not do anything to provoke the man to start hitting him again.

The man keeps speaking but Merlin doesn’t catch all the words. He tenses when the man gets close again, but he only lifts Merlin’s head and puts something soft beneath it.

It’s unexpected, and it calms Merlin enough that he can finally focus on what’s being said to him.

The man wants to check if he’s hit his head.

Why would the same man who hurt him want to help him now? It makes no sense. But he doesn’t do anything to resist, just lets the man carry out his inspection, until he tries to reach for Merlin’s fingers. Merlin won’t let him, they hurt too much, he can’t stand anything else being done to them. The man tries once more but he doesn’t press it.

By the time he’s finished, things have come back into focus a little. Enough so that when the man asks if he can carry Merlin upstairs, Merlin is able to say no.

The man sighs and says something about being sorry. Something about not knowing what was happening. Something about wanting to help.

Oh. The man’s Arthur. Merlin’s embarrassed he didn’t figure that out sooner.

“Will you let me help?” Arthur asks.

Merlin thinks about it.

“Yes,” he says.

Time passes. Merlin closes his eyes. And then he opens them and he’s being lifted. He clings on, suddenly afraid of being dropped, but Arthur holds him steady. He carries him to the bathroom and sets him down on the floor, and then asks to take his clothes off.

Merlin nods. It doesn’t seem to matter anyway, and Arthur’s voice is soothing, and Merlin doesn’t have any fight left in him.

Then he puts Merlin in the bath and it hurts, it hurts so much, but he rides it out and then the water starts to feel like a comfort against his battered skin.

Arthur washes him, all over. He should be humiliated but that’s not how he feels. The swipe of the flannel against his skin is soft, and it’s even nicer when Arthur starts to wash his hair, massaging the shampoo into his scalp.

Arthur’s speaking again. He’s saying he would never have let them do what they did, if he had been here.

Merlin doesn’t know whether to believe him or not. 

“They had keys,” he whispers.

Arthur says they were from his father. Then he says sorry, and he sounds like he’s on the verge of tears.

Merlin thinks hard.

The he tells Arthur he believes him. Because he does.

  
  
  
  


Arthur lifts him out of the bath not long after and carries him into the bedroom, setting him down on a towel laid over the bed. Then he takes another towel and starts drying him off.

Arthur’s clearly trying to be gentle but the feel of the material on his too-raw skin still hurts. Merlin’s folding his body up before he can stop himself, trying to protect his broken flesh. But the movement only jars his ribs and he lets out a whimper of pain.

“Hey, okay. Easy now.”

Arthur throws the towel on the chair. 

“I’m all done. Can you straighten out for me?”

It takes Merlin three tries before he can convince his body to cooperate, that it won’t be baring itself for attack this time.

Once he’s flat out again he shivers and Arthur frowns.

“I’ll turn the heating up.”

He leaves and Merlin’s stares up at the ceiling. His vision’s not quite clear yet, the edges are still a little fuzzy, but he can make out the swirling patterns in the paint above. He concentrates on them, tries to come back to himself, to calm the skittering of his heart.

Arthur returns, and puts a small box down on the bed next to Merlin. 

“I think we should do your hand first,” he says. “Can you move your fingers at all or-“

Merlin tries to unclench them and is rewarded with a sharp spike of agony running up his arm.

“No,” he gasps.

“They look either fractured or dislocated,” Arthur says. “I’m going to have to move them back into place before I can wrap them up. I’m afraid it’ll hurt a bit.”

His voice is very calm, but Merlin can see his knuckles are white where he’s gripping the edge of the box.

“S’okay,” he slurs out. “Had a- had a broken finger before. Remember doctor re-resetting.”

That had been after a fight he got into outside a pub, with a man wearing a ThinkBritain badge. Edwin had tutted the next day to see the work of the harried A&E doctor. He’d reset Merlin’s pinky again, and spelled any lingering pain away too.

Even if Merlin had his magic now, he wouldn’t be able to do that. He was never much good at healing, and his only successes had been when he’d managed to keep a clear mind. If he tried now he’d probably blow his hand off.

“Do you want something to bite down on?” Arthur asks and Merlin nods. Arthur gets a belt from the wardrobe and carefully places it in Merlin’s mouth. 

He takes hold of Merlin’s hand, and Merlin resists the urge to pull away. 

“Ready?” Arthur says, and sensibly doesn’t wait for an answer. 

It’s not instantaneous like it is in the movies. Arthur has to twist his middle finger around for several seconds before it’s roughly where it’s supposed to be, and Merlin’s eyes roll back in his head with the pain. Arthur doesn’t prolong the experience, moving on to his index finger immediately. That one clicks back into place with an audible sound and Merlin nearly bites through the belt in his mouth. 

He’d like to pass out, then; he doesn’t want to be brave and stay awake through all of this. But unconsciousness doesn’t favour him and so he spits the belt out and pants until the throbbing in his fingers lessens to a manageable level.

“You did well,” Arthur says seriously as he begins to wrap the fingers together. Merlin wonders if he should feel patronised but Arthur seems sincere so he just grunts in response.

Somehow the sight of his fingers straightened out again, taped up and ready to heal, clears some of the fog from his mind. Unfortunately, clarity comes with self-consciousness. 

“Can you...?” Merlin begins, squirming slightly. “Some underwear…”

Arthur starts.

“Oh… yeah, course, hang on.”

It’s a bit late to be embarrassed now, Arthur had just bathed him for God’s sakes, and it was nothing he hadn’t revealed the night before in the cell anyway. 

(And was that really only last night, because it felt like a lifetime ago?)

But Merlin’s feeling vulnerable enough right now and he needs some semblance of dignity. Arthur returns with a pair of boxers and Merlin reaches out for them, before drawing back.

He doesn’t think he can move to put them on right now, but he doesn’t want to ask Arthur to do it. Before he can think of a way around it, he feels a light touch on his ankle.

“Let’s get these on,” Arthur says softly and Merlin swallows his objections. It’s embarrassing, yes, but he needs help right now and Arthur’s is freely given. 

Arthur slides the boxers up his legs, manoeuvring him slightly to pull them over his hips. Merlin does his best to arch up and help but it’s a momentous effort. He winces when Arthur’s hand grazes the bruise on the side of his hip, but it’s worth it to be at least partially clothed again.

Arthur’s already felt and diagnosed his broken ribs; he’s reaching for the bandages when Merlin stops him.

“Don’t tape them up,” he says. “Constrict my chest… too much.”

Arthur looks worried.

“But if you sneeze or cough, it’s gonna jar.”

“Take my chances,” Merlin wheezes and Arthur nods, dropping the bandages back in the box.

He does the gash on Merlin’s head next, swabbing it with disinfectant until it stings. It’s stopped bleeding and Arthur agrees to forgo the plaster, although he puts one on the ankle scrape and the cut on his lower back. Then he rubs Arnica cream on each of the bruises. Merlin doesn’t know if Arthur realises he’s giving each one a gentle little pat when he finishes but he doesn’t comment on it, because he doesn’t want Arthur to stop. 

Eventually, there’s nothing more to do.

“I think that’s it,” Arthur says, and he props Merlin up on the bed so he can take the wet towel away. He gives Merlin’s hair a brief rub but it’s mostly dry anyway, the central heating having finally kicked in.

“Back to the cell?” Merlin croaks and Arthur looks shocked.

“No, of course not. You’re sleeping here tonight.”

Merlin looks around.

“Your bed?”

“Yes, it’s the most comfortable.”

“Tie me up?” Merlin says fearfully and Arthur exhales heavily.

“No. I’ll… I’ll sleep in here with you.”

He looks like he wants to say something else but he stops himself. Merlin doesn’t know why Arthur’s worrying. He couldn’t escape now to save his life; he’s in no condition to even stand. But he doesn’t argue because he’s scared Arthur might change his mind and bring him back down to that cold, damp cell.

“Do you want pyjamas? I have spares.”

Merlin shakes his head. The room is warm now, and he doesn’t want any material rubbing up against his bruises and cuts.

“Food? You haven’t eaten since…”

“No,” Merlin says. He knows his body and food would only come straight back up again right now.

“Okay, but you’re having water,” Arthur says. “And some medicine too.”

He fetches a bottle from downstairs and Merlin sips it slowly, savouring the coolness on his strained throat. Arthur gives him two pills from a prescription bottle, so he suspects they’re a little stronger than paracetamol. He doesn’t ask, though. He’s tired enough that he’ll take whatever’s offered to numb the pain a bit.

When he’s had enough water, Arthur helps him lie down on one side of the bed, tucking the covers around him. Then he leaves the room for a bit.

Merlin’s eyes are getting heavy but the aching of his body is keeping him from sleep. However, by the time Arthur returns twenty minutes later, the pills seem to be kicking in. Everything is softening at the edges and he doesn’t hurt as much.

He watches, eyes half closed, as Arthur changes his jeans for a pair of pyjama bottoms. Then, hazily, he sees Arthur take his shirt off. 

For a moment he thinks Arthur has a tattoo of his own, tree branches or a spider web or something snaking out across his lower abdomen. But then Arthur turns and Merlin can see it more clearly.

It’s a scar but it’s not just any scar. It’s a scar of magic. Merlin would recognise one anywhere. 

  
  
  
  


It’s a kill scar too, he realises, with an unfocused sort of jolt. But that makes no sense, because Arthur’s clearly alive. And yet whoever cast the spell had meant it to be fatal. It takes a near miracle to survive one of those. 

Where had Arthur got it? Who had tried to kill him, and why?

He opens his mouth to ask but unconsciousness is quickly rising up to claim him and he can’t get the words out. The questions dance in his mind, until they too slide away from him. The last thing he’s aware of is Arthur slipping in bed beside him, and a hand reaching out to stroke his hair, once, softly.

  
  
  
  


When Merlin wakes up again, something feels wrong. He turns to speak to Arthur but the bed beside him is empty. Then the door swings open and he looks up.

“Arthur, I-”

But the words die in his throat as the figure steps through the door and he sees it’s not Arthur at all. It’s Val.

“Did you really think I’d let you live, freak?” Val says. 

Merlin is paralysed with fear, frozen in place on the bed. Val advances, fist raised.

He’s going to kill him this time.

“Arthur!” Merlin screams, his voice rushing back to him. “ARTHUR!”

Val sneers.

“He’s already dead.”

And then his hands are around Merlin’s throat and Merlin can’t breathe, he’s gasping, panting, trying desperately to suck some air into his lungs, the words _help me help me help me_ thrumming through his head...

“Merlin,” Val’s saying. “Merlin. Merlin!”

Only it doesn’t sound like Val, it sounds like…

Merlin’s eyes fly open to see no Val, no hands around his throat. Arthur is kneeling on the bed next to him, frantically saying his name.

“Merlin, you’re okay, it was just a nightmare.”

But he’s not okay because he still can’t breathe. Even with no hands around his throat, he can’t pull any air in, he’s too panicked.

Arthur seems to realise what’s happening after a few more choked seconds.

“Merlin, it’s alright, you need to just calm down and breathe. Come on; take a deep breath for me. In through your nose and out through your mouth. Come on.”

But Merlin’s too far gone for that and he can only wheeze desperately, tears starting at the corners of his eyes as his body strains to draw breath.

“Merlin, please just calm down. You’re safe now, I promise.”

It’s no use, and Arthur clearly recognises it because after a few muffled swear words he suddenly plants himself with his back to the headboard of the bed, and pulls Merlin up against him. He arranges him in between his legs, so that Merlin’s back is pushed up against Arthur’s chest, and he wraps his arms loosely around him.

“Follow my rhythm,” he says urgently. “Breathe with me.”

Merlin tries to shut down the panic long enough to do what he says. He concentrates on the rise and fall of Arthur’s chest and attempts to match it with his own.

With every inhale and exhale, Arthur says the words out loud.

“In and out. In and out. That’s good, stay with me. In and out.”

  
  
  
  
  


Merlin sucks in a breath when Arthur tells him to, lets his body be moved back and forth by the steady rhythm of Arthur’s lungs. It’s hard but ever so gradually he comes back to himself, the horror of the nightmare slipping away and the world around him asserting itself. The proximity to Arthur’s body helps him ground himself. He can feel the warmth of Arthur’s skin against him; feel the arms supporting him in place. 

It’s ridiculous to feel safe. He’s still a hostage and the events of the day before had definitively proved the vulnerability of his situation. But he lets all that go for a second and clings to this moment of security, of feeling protected – even if it can’t last.

Eventually his breathing tapers back to normal, Arthur murmuring soft encouragements all the way.

“Okay?” 

Merlin nods exhaustedly, leaning his head back on Arthur’s shoulder. The painkillers are still strong enough that he’s not feeling all the cuts and bruises quite yet, but there’s a dull ache in most parts of his body. 

He wants to sleep again but he’s frightened of another nightmare.

“What were you dreaming about?” Arthur asks quietly, as though he just read Merlin’s thoughts.

“Val. Came back. Tried- tried to strangle me.”

Merlin wishes his voice wouldn’t shake. Arthur’s grip tightens around him slightly.

“He won’t come back. I know I said that before but this time…”

Merlin wants to believe him, but the more he understands about Arkstone and Arthur’s role in it, the more he doubts that any one man is powerful enough to stand up to them. Arthur’s intentions might be good, but he’s not the one running the show.

“I didn’t know, you know.”

“I know,” Merlin says, slightly surprised. “You told me earlier, remember?”

“I want to tell you again,” Arthur says and he sounds very serious. “I wouldn’t have… I would never…”

“I know,” Merlin says again.

He feels like he should detach from Arthur’s embrace now that he’s technically out of the danger zone but he doesn’t quite want to yet. He hasn’t been held like this since he was a child. It feels nice to lean back into someone else, to fold your body into theirs.

He’s twenty five and he can count on one hand the number of times he’s slept in the same bed as someone else. He’s been fighting and hiding for so long that the little things could never be a part of his life. He never dared slow down long enough to sleep in the same space as someone else, to intertwine his body with theirs.

Merlin’s so tired of running. Why did it have to be like this? What had he ever done? When he thinks of the things he missed out on, it’s like he’s mourning for the life he could have had.

Oddly enough, Arthur could probably understand that. It didn’t sound like he’d ever got to have much of a normal life either.

They’d both been bound by the circumstances of their birth the minute they came into the world. Both been raised with expectations of what they might do, and punished when they fell short. 

What would they have been like, if they’d been allowed to find their own way? Sometimes Merlin feels like a composite of all the people around him, of the hopes and fears and beliefs that they’ve pinned on him. Who is he underneath all that? What might he have been if he’d had the freedom to choose? 

Arthur would have been happier, Merlin thinks. He was never cut out to be an anti-Magical, his heart’s not in it.

Would he have been happier without magic?

No. For all the trouble that comes along with it, he could never give his magic up. It’s at the very heart of him. 

“What are you thinking about?” Arthur murmurs.

“Feel safe with you,” Merlin says, too exhausted to lie.

Arthur’s arms tighten around him.


	8. Chapter Seven

When Merlin wakes the next morning, he finds himself pressed up against Arthur, his back to Arthur’s chest. He was still sitting when he fell asleep but he’s lying down now, cocooned by Arthur’s body.

Everything looks different in the morning light and yet Merlin doesn’t feel any less at home in Arthur’s arms.

He shifts slightly, not wanting Arthur to wake up and let him go quite yet, but unfortunately the movement jars his injuries.

He hisses in pain and Arthur stirs behind him.

“Merlin?” He mumbles sleepily, and it sounds so strangely affectionate, like it’s completely natural for them to wake up entangled in each other’s arms. 

He can pinpoint the exact moment Arthur wakes up properly, because he instantly shifts away from Merlin.

“Sorry,” he says guiltily and Merlin wants to tell him it’s okay, but he’s suddenly in too much pain to even speak. He gasps a little, the throb in his fingers and side building unbearably, and Arthur seems to understand. He gets up quickly and fetches the pill bottle from the side, and the water from the nightstand.

“Here,” he says and Merlin tries to sit up but it’s too difficult and he feels frustrated tears pricking at his eyes as Arthur climbs back onto the bed. 

“Hey, now,” Arthur says softly, giving his good hand a little pat. “S’okay.”

His voice is still thick with sleep but Merlin hears the concern in it so he doesn’t complain about being treated like a child. He lets Arthur manoeuvre him to sit up against the bed frame and accepts the pills with a shaking hand. 

He feels psychologically better once he’s taken them, even though he knows they won’t kick in for a good half hour. Arthur goes to make tea and Merlin rests his head against the headboard and tries to breathe through the agony. He’s mildly distracted from the hurt when Arthur returns and bullies him into eating two slices of toast. Merlin protests that he’ll be sick but he has to admit he feels a little better once he’s got them down.

He’s trying very hard not to think about the events of the day before, because he doesn’t think he’s ready to go there yet. But when Arthur leans up to reach something from the cupboard and his shirt rides up, a memory of last night flashes up in his head.

“How did you get that scar?” 

Arthur freezes.

“What scar?” He asks slowly.

“When you were changing last night, I saw…” Merlin trails off, gesturing to Arthur’s stomach.

Arthur’s face smooths out into blankness.

“Old football injury,” he says. “Do you want some more tea? I made a p-”

“Arthur,” Merlin says. “It’s a magic scar. And a kill scar, if I’m not mistaken.”

Arthur starts tidying up the medicines and plasters left out on the dresser.

“So what if it is?” He says flatly. “Not any of your business.”

From this angle, Merlin can see the faint bites he left on Arthur’s neck. There’s still a swelling in Arthur’s lip from where Merlin sunk his teeth in two nights ago. He’s made Arthur his business and it’s too late to back out now.

“Fair enough. But I have to say I’m a little surprised. All those discussions we had on the morality of magic and you never once threw that in my face.”

“It wasn’t-” Arthur says, and stops. He fiddles with a roll of bandages for a while and Merlin waits, sensing he shouldn’t push right now.

“It wasn’t the kind of thing you throw in someone’s face,” Arthur says finally.

“Oh no, I didn’t mean it like that,” Merlin says guiltily. “I wasn’t trying to trivialise-”

“I know,” Arthur cuts him off. “I meant… it wasn’t his fault. The man. Who did it.”

“What happened?” Merlin asks.

Arthur looks troubled.

“Do you remember those, um, illegal magic fights they used to have? In warehouses and stuff?”

Merlin remembers them all too well. He stayed up late one night when he was ten to watch a documentary on them, attracted by the temptingly gory advert. It was a mistake. He’d watched in horror as secret cameras captured footage of men being beaten, brutalised, ripped to shreds in front of baying crowds. His mum came down to find him crying on the sofa, convinced that he’d be forced to fight too one day. She reassured him as best she could but he couldn’t help but notice the tears in her own eyes.

Not long before he’d arrived at the Institute, they’d spearheaded a nationwide campaign with the police to crack down on underground fighting rings. The fights were all but gone now, a relic of a grislier time. But they lingered on in the collective consciousness of the Magical community. Some things could not be forgotten.

Arthur seems to be waiting for some sign of acknowledgment so Merlin nods.

“My dad took me to one when I was fifteen. And I… I left early because I was… I didn’t like it. One of the Magicals tried to use me as leverage to escape. He aimed the spell at my father but I stepped in front of it. And then…”

He runs one hand almost unconsciously over his stomach. 

“Was it a kill spell?”

“Yeah. It was like a one in a hundred chance of me surviving it. But I did.”

Arthur motions unhappily, almost like he can’t understand why he was spared.

“You said it wasn’t the man’s fault,” Merlin says, and it’s halfway to a question. 

“He was half crazy with whatever drugs they pumped him full of,” Arthur says, and his tone is sad. “I don’t think he even knew what he was doing.”

It’s a more compassionate response than Merlin would have expected. But he’s gotten used to Arthur being full of surprises by now.

And then the full weight of what he’s just heard hits him. Arthur nearly died when he was fifteen. He went through something most people never will. It must have had a profound effect on who he became.

It's another piece of the Arthur puzzle but Merlin’s beginning to think he’ll never fit it all together now. He only knows what he knows.

Which is that he cares about Arthur, and that his hatred for Uther grows with every passing moment.

“So your father took you to an illegal magic fight at fifteen?” He says, not bothering to hide the disgust in his voice.

Unexpectedly, Arthur gives him a rather wry smile.

“He was sorry. I know what you think of him but he was. When I was in hospital, he never left my side. I think he… it must have brought back memories of when my mum died.”

Arthur’s never mentioned his mother before, not even once. Merlin hadn’t pried, guessing how painful the subject must be. But Arthur’s brought it up now so he says:

“I’m sorry about your mum.”

Arthur shrugs, but there’s nothing casual about it. It’s the kind of accustomed weariness that comes from hearing meaningless apologies all your life. Merlin knows a thing or two about that.

“You can tell me about it, if you like,” he says quietly.

Arthur looks like he’s considering it. There’s a little furrow in his brow that Merlin wants to smooth out with his fingers. 

“It was a blood clot,” he says at last. “The hospital had just joined the Medical Magic Trust and they offered her a spelled epidural. My dad wanted her to get a regular one but she thought this way was less risky. The midwife performed the spell and…”

Arthur stops, face contorting in grief, and Merlin’s heart breaks a little. He looks so worn down. Like he’s bone weary. Like he’s been that way for a long time.

“She got to hold me. For at least a few minutes. Before she…”

He blinks rapidly a few times and Merlin has to fight not to reach out to him, to take him in his arms. 

Arthur’s voice is ragged when he finally continues.

“Uther sued the hospital after and they settled out of court. He got the midwife fired too.”

Of course he did.

Merlin isn’t sure if he should say what he’s about to say but he thinks it needs to be said. Enough people have lied to Arthur in his life, he deserves the truth now.

“Arthur,” Merlin begins gently. “You know that magical epidurals can’t cause a blood clot, right? They’ve been tested and tested; they’re almost completely risk free.”

“I know,” Arthur says tiredly. “I looked it up when I was sixteen. After… after the warehouse, I started to question some of the things my dad said. So I read all the studies on the internet. I know it wasn’t anyone’s fault. She… she would have died anyway.”

His fingers absently trace across the ring on his finger.

“But my dad was influential and I think the hospital just wanted to make it go away. So they let the midwife take the blame.”

No matter how many stories like this Merlin hears, they always cut him deep. So many Magicals had been forced to pay for the mistakes of others. It burns him up inside.

“I wrote her name down,” Arthur says suddenly. “The midwife. Nimueh Lachlan. She wasn’t allowed to practice again. My dad made sure of that. But I… I want to make it right. I don’t know how. Maybe when my dad’s retired, or… I can clear her name.”

He looks fiercely determined and Merlin feels a strange rush of something approaching pride. He thinks of his own father and how he longs to tell the world who Balinor Emrys really was, and how he died. But Arthur doesn’t even know this Nimueh. He’s only doing it because he thinks it’s right.

It’s not the first time Merlin’s seen flashes of the man Arthur truly is away from the influence of his father and the indoctrination he grew up with. Merlin wants to draw that man out, bring him to the light. There’s so much potential for Arthur to be something more.

“That sounds like a good thing to do,” he says softly.

Arthur smiles then; a little nervous, a little hopeful.

Merlin wants to say something, something about the way they woke up slotted together like two halves of a whole, but the moment passes. 

And he seems to have used up all his energy on the conversation because he drifts off not five minutes later and sleeps for most of the day. Arthur wakes him up for lunch, and then for dinner, although Merlin’s so tired he can only get through two thirds of each before his eyes slip shut again.

He sleeps all through the night and wakes at noon the next day to find Arthur gone and a note on the bed promising he’ll be back soon.

He’s left Merlin’s pills within reaching distance, but the wait for them to kick in is as agonising as usual. He’s grateful when Arthur returns from town to divert his attention.

“Any news?” He asks on autopilot. And then he realises that yes, there probably is news and he’s probably a significant part of it.

“I didn’t look for long,” Arthur says briefly, and he’s quite obviously avoiding Merlin’s eyes.

“Did the video get released?” Merlin asks, already knowing the answer.

“Yeah,” Arthur says, concentrating hard on unlacing his shoes.

“I suppose all the news channels played it,” Merlin says, letting an edge creep into his voice.

“I think… some. Not all. And only after watershed because–”

“Because it was graphic, yes,” Merlin bites out.

He’s hiding behind anger to counter the nausea rising in his stomach. Everyone’s going to see that video of him; whimpering and bloody on the floor, broken and pathetic. Any kid with an internet connection will be able to view one of the worst moments of his life.

“I’m sorry-”

“Don’t,” Merlin says, holding his hand up. “No more apologies. You can’t do anything about the fact that it’s out there now, and the world and his wife can have a good laugh at the little Magical begging for mercy from-”

“No, Merlin,” Arthur cuts in, sounding horrified. “I swear it’s not like that. People are disgusted. Not-not at you, at what they did to you. There’s been a public outrage.”

“An outrage?”

Merlin doesn’t believe it. Magicals may have come a long way in the last decade, but no-one really cares about them. They’re tolerated at best; no-one would go to the bat to fight for their rights. 

“People from all over the UK have been sending messages of support, and from outside the UK too. Non-Magicals as well as Magicals. They’re organising a big march on Whitehall this week in protest. Even some of the Integrity party have come forward and said they’ve decided to back the microchipping bill.”

Merlin frowns, not quite able to take it in.

“People really care?” He asks uncertainly.

“Yes,” Arthur says emphatically. “My father’s plan completely backfired. He thought he could intimidate the Institute, but all he did was spark a massive groundswell of support for you, support for the whole cause.”

He pauses.

“I think… I think sometimes people are anti-Magical because they don’t know any better. They never have to think hard about it. And then… this kidnapping, this video. I think more people saw how wrong it was. Like a wakeup call or something.”

Merlin senses that Arthur isn’t only talking about other people here, but himself as well. 

He wonders if it could all be so easy. If people’s minds could change, just like that. 

Edwin always said that every political movement has its time. That sometimes people need a catalyst to start doing what they should have done all along. 

If he’s been a catalyst… perhaps it’s worth that video being out there. No matter how painful it is for him. 

He feels some of the anger seeping away, and his voice is calmer when he speaks again.

“Did the Institute make any statement about it?” 

“No, but Mordred Barrett went on Newsnight to express his outrage.”

Merlin notices Arthur’s frowning slightly.

“What’s that look for?”

“Just… he could have kept his mouth shut in the first place,” Arthur says irritably. “I’m not saying it’s his fault, but he could have picked a better time to make such an inflammatory speech.”

Merlin stares at him.

“Don’t be ridiculous, you can't blame this on him.”

Merlin had been strangely happy when Arthur told him about Mordred’s speech, even for all the trouble it caused. Mordred was so careful all the time, always trying to be moderate, never wanting to alienate potential voters. Merlin didn’t want to see him go the way of Julius and lose the passion that led him to politics in the first place. It was nice to hear he had a bit of fire in his belly after all.

“I’m not blaming it on him, I’m only saying-”

“I’m glad he made that speech, he’s never been one to back down to bullies,” Merlin says stoutly.

“It’s not about backing down, he should have thought about the consequences. You’d think he would want to look out for you considering…”

Merlin gives Arthur a very pointed look.

“Considering what?”

Arthur gestures uncomfortably.

“Considering the two of you… you know…”

“I am not with Mordred.”

“But you did kiss him.”

“Arthur, are you jealous?” Merlin asks, suddenly amused. Is that what this is all about?

“No. Why would I be jealous?” Arthur retorts defensively.

Merlin’s in far too much pain to be coy.

“Because we nearly fucked the other day until you ran scared, and I don’t think you even know what you want.”

There’s a silence that can only be described as excruciating but Merlin’s past caring to be honest. They’ve been through too much to dance around each other now, to pretend. If Arthur won’t face up to it, then Merlin will damn well make him.

“The other night,” Arthur says with great difficulty. “Was a mistake.”

“Bullshit,” Merlin says immediately. “It was fucked up, I’ll grant you that, but it was not a mistake. We both wanted it. The mistake was when you ran.”

Arthur runs his hand through his hair and it’s trembling slightly.

“I can’t… I can’t have this conversation with you.”

“Don’t be such a coward,” Merlin says, but his tone isn’t harsh. He wants Arthur to stop blocking him, to open up and let him in. He’s scared too; he doesn’t understand what’s happening between them any better than Arthur does. But he can’t figure it out on his own.

“Does this happen to you a lot?” He continues insistently. “Because it doesn’t happen to me. I never feel like this. That tells me that it’s something more than just…”

“Merlin, please,” Arthur says miserably. 

“No! Please nothing. Does it happen to you? Does it? Say the word and I’ll back off; tell me it means nothing, tell me I mean nothing to you. Tell me. Tell me and I’ll never mention it again.”

Arthur turns away. Long seconds tick by.

“I can’t tell you that,” he says at last, and his voice is low, strained. “But I can’t be with you either.”

Then he walks out the room.

Merlin slumps back down on the bed. He wants to punch a wall, go for a walk, anything to relieve some of the tension thrumming through him, but he can’t. 

All he can do is lie there and play Arthur’s words over and over in his head.

  
  
  
  


Arthur doesn’t let himself dwell on what Merlin said. He doesn’t bring it up again, and he blocks all of Merlin’s attempts to talk about it. Instead he just concentrates on getting Merlin well again.

It helps that Merlin’s asleep most of the time. Arthur hopes that’s a good thing, hopes that means he’s healing. He keeps a close eye on Merlin’s injuries, checks him over at least once a day, bandages what needs rebandaging. Merlin sometimes drifts off while Arthur’s working on him. He does it in the middle of meals too and Arthur has to gently prod him awake again, and make him sleepily eat the last of the food.

He can’t deny that it’s endearing. But what little warmth he gleans from taking care of Merlin is completely overshadowed by the cold weight of guilt in his stomach, for letting him get hurt in the first place.

On the fourth day, Merlin looks a bit more alert after breakfast than he normally does.

“You want a book or something?” Arthur says. “Or I could play a DVD on my laptop?”

“No, I…”

“What?”

“I could do with a shave,” Merlin says, gesturing to the stubble that’s grown in the last three days. 

Arthur nods, going to the side of the bed to help Merlin stand up. He can mostly walk on his own now, but Arthur still supports him as they make their way to the bathroom. He doesn’t want Merlin pushing it and getting injured again. 

He sits Merlin down on the edge of the bathtub and turns to find the electric shaver. And then he sees the pieces sat on the shelf and remembers.

“Ah. I… I kind of broke the shaver.”

Merlin looks at the remains.

“How?”

“I threw it against the wall.”

Merlin raises an eyebrow.

“Why?”

“I was angry,” Arthur says briefly, not wanting to go into it. Merlin gives him a knowing look, but he doesn’t press the issue.

“Okay. I’ll keep the stubble.”

“Unless… I have a normal razor if you want.”

Arthur always carries a spare, just a cheap disposable. He gets it from his washbag and then rummages through the bathroom cupboard and finds some shaving gel left over from the last time he was here.

Merlin moves along the bath until he’s next to the sink. He takes hold of the razor in his good hand, but when Arthur tries to give him the gel they both realise the problem.

“It’s fine, just-”

Merlin drops the razor in his lap and then flicks the tap on one handed, before trying to wet his face. The angle is awkward and he splashes water down his t-shirt.

“Shit,” he mutters and Arthur leans forward automatically. “No, it’s fine, I can do it, I can-”

“Merlin,” Arthur says gently. “Your hand’s shaking.”

“I know it’s fucking shaking!” Merlin shouts, and then sucks in a deep breath. “Sorry. Sorry, I just…”

He trails off, looks down at his lap. Balls his good hand into a fist, trying to stop the trembling.

Arthur has the same feeling as when he smashed the shaver against the wall. Merlin’s too strong to break but he is splintering. Fragment by fragment. Arthur has to get him out of here.

But he needs time to plan and he can’t do that now. So he focuses on the issue at hand.

“Let me shave you.”

Merlin looks up. 

“I’m not an invalid.”

“No-one said you were. But you will do some serious damage to yourself if you try to shave with that tremor.”

Merlin looks uncertain and Arthur reaches out to take the razor from his lap.

“Trust me,” he says and it’s a stupid thing to say, a ridiculous thing, because why would Merlin trust him of all people? And yet he means it. He wants Merlin to trust him. He wants to prove himself worthy of that trust.

There’s a slight pause. Then Merlin nods.

Arthur turns the tap back on, wetting his hands and then gently patting them onto Merlin’s skin. Luckily there aren’t any cuts or bruises on the lower half of his face, although Merlin still winces slightly at the contact. Then Arthur lathers some of the gel in his palms and smears it on.

Merlin’s looking up at him, eyes big. Arthur feels a moment of nerves when he slips the plastic cover off the razor, dips it in the water stream. It’s not a cut throat razor but it’s sharp enough to cause damage and he winces at the idea of accidentally hurting Merlin. Even the tiniest nick in his skin feels like it would be too much at this point, when so much violence has already been done to him.

He angles Merlin’s head to the side and swipes an even line over his left cheek, then another. The skin is pale and smooth underneath, and he has to resist the momentary urge to touch it.

  
  
  
  
  


He does the other cheek and then carefully shaves his chin. Merlin lifts his head compliantly once he’s finished, baring his neck.

He looks frighteningly exposed like that, offering up the vulnerable territory of his throat for Arthur’s blade. Arthur tries to keep a steady motion as he moves the razor along, afraid to fall at this last hurdle. He suddenly realises that neither of them has spoken since he began, and it adds to the strangely intimate feel of the process. He tilts Merlin’s head to the side one last time and glides through the last of the lather.

His hand is slightly tingly as he lays the razor down and wets a washcloth with warm water. He wipes it across Merlin’s face slowly, and then grabs a towel and pats him dry. It’s only when he’s reaching for the aftershave cream that he acknowledges how tenderly he’s administering to Merlin, the care he’s taken with every motion.

Merlin’s looking straight at him as he applies the lotion. His skin is soft to the touch now, slightly warm from the water. Arthur can’t help but take his time as he massages it in. He doesn’t want this to be over just yet, to have to stop holding Merlin’s face between his own two hands like it belongs there.

The weight of Merlin’s gaze sends prickles of heat through him.

When he finally draws back, reluctantly, Merlin clears his throat.

“Thanks. That… that feels better.”

“Welcome,” Arthur says, mouth dry. The strange intimate feeling hasn’t dissipated and it lingers even as he helps Merlin back to the bed. He props him up against the cushions and steps back. Merlin’s gaze follows him.

They just look at each other for a few moments and then Merlin lets out the tiniest of sighs. It’s that little exhale that does it for some reason, along with the way Merlin’s looking at him, and the memory of how his skin felt beneath Arthur’s hands just scant moments ago. The beauty of this man, the warmth of him, the tightly guarded wonder of him. It gives Arthur the courage to finally say what he has to say.

“I’m going to make my report to Uther this afternoon. Then I’m coming home and letting you go.”

“What?” Merlin says, looking totally dumbfounded.

“This is wrong and I knew it all along. I never should have done it. And now… you’re hurt… and I’m ending it. It should have happened sooner, and I’m sorry Merlin. I truly am.”

Merlin brings a hand up to scrub at his eyes.

“Arthur, I-”

“I’ll drop you at the nearest town if you want. Or… or I can drive you to a police station. I’ll hand myself in, if you want me to. I won’t try and worm out of this.”

“I-”

“Or I’ll take you back to London. Or an Institute base. Or anywhere, just tell me. Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

“I don’t want you to turn yourself in,” Merlin says haltingly.

“Why not?” Arthur says and feels traitorous tears pricking at his eyes. “I kidnapped you. I deserve to be punished. To be locked up.”

“No,” Merlin says, shaking his head vigorously. “I may not know everything but I know this wasn’t your idea. You went along with it, and that was bad, but you didn’t mastermind this. You don’t deserve to be the one to go down for it.”

“You’re just saying that because… because…”

“Because what?” Merlin says, raising his head to look Arthur full in the face. “Because I like you? Because we were intimate? Because the last three mornings I’ve woken up in this bed with you pressed up against me like you belong there?”

“Merlin, don’t,” Arthur half-whispers.

“Why shouldn’t I? Why are you hiding from me? I know it’s scary and I know it’s wrong but it’s here. We can’t ignore it. It’s happening. You want me. I want you.”

“We can’t,” Arthur says, agonised. He can’t bear that Merlin’s putting it all out there in this way, just like when he took his clothes off in the cell and dared Arthur to make the next move.

“Why?”

“I’ve been holding you hostage!” Arthur bursts out. “I have power over you, it’s not… it’s sick that I even want you.”

Merlin smiles.

“Arthur, I’ve never felt intimidated by your ‘power over me.’ No offence, but in any normal circumstance I could overpower you in about three seconds flat.”

“But we’re not in a normal circumstance, are we?” Arthur points out.

“No,” Merlin sighs, fiddling with the tape on his fingers before speaking again. 

“Look, I don’t know what this is, alright? If it is anything at all. But I know that I don’t want to see you go to prison.”

Arthur stares at him. 

“I don’t get why you like me,” he says at last.

Merlin’s eyes turn sad at that.

“I think that’s your father talking, not you.”

Arthur wants to argue that Uther had never said anything like that to him but then he realised, he hadn’t needed to. Uther had said it all by implication. He’d never made him feel like Arthur was the kind of person others would want to be around. The opposite, in fact.

Arthur doesn’t really want to think about his father right now. What will he do when he finds out Arthur let Merlin go? Handing himself in and going to prison would almost be preferable to facing Uther’s wrath.

“This is such a mess,” he says without thinking and Merlin grins unexpectedly.

“You’re telling me.”

They share a smile.

“Arthur, maybe you should just go too. Drop me off somewhere and then get on a flight. Get away from here. I’ll tell them I never saw your face, I’ll tell them I don’t know who you are…”

“My father would find me,” Arthur says and he feels sick at the truth of it.

Merlin is silent for a while. Then:

“Come here,” he says.

Arthur walks over to the bed and Merlin beckons him closer. He doesn’t stop until Arthur’s face is right in front of his, until they’re looking straight into each other eyes.

Then he dips his head and presses a kiss to the very corner of Arthur’s mouth.

Arthur goes weak. He can’t help himself. He knows it’s wrong but the way Merlin’s looking at him, the way Arthur was running his hands across those soft cheeks just moments before… it’s all too much for him.

He surges forward and captures Merlin’s lips in a kiss. It’s not frantic like that night in the cell; it’s not urgent or desperate. It’s delicate, and tender. They kiss each other like they’re breakable, like too much pressure could shatter them into pieces.

At some point Merlin tugs at Arthur’s shirt, and Arthur peels it off obligingly. He has to go much slower when he removes Merlin’s; his ribs are still purple-blue and Arthur winces at the sight of them. But Merlin kisses the anguish off his face, lets Arthur lie him down gently on his back and climb on top of him. Arthur takes his own weight, running one gentle hand across Merlin’s chest, savouring the warmth of his skin.

  
  
  
  


The tattoos are bright on Merlin’s body; bold and wonderful. Arthur kisses them, bends to lave his tongue across Merlin’s nipples, enjoying the quiet whine he elicits. Then Merlin reaches for the buckle on his belt and Arthur pauses.

“Merlin…”

“Don’t you dare say we should stop,” Merlin pants. “I will fight you, I swear to God.”

Arthur laughs.

“No, I just meant… how do you want to…”

“Oh!” Merlin blinks up at him, before frowning slightly. “I want to be inside you.”

The way he says it so plainly, so honestly, tugs at something deep within Arthur.

“Okay,” he says happily. “We can definitely- oh.”

He suddenly understands Merlin’s frown. He’s not in any fit state to top, not really. Even if Arthur rode him, he’d be putting too much pressure on Merlin’s injured mid-section.

Merlin looks so frustrated that Arthur almost has to laugh. He leans down to press a kiss to Merlin’s lips.

“Next time, okay?”

He says it without thinking but Merlin looks up at him with bright eyes.

“That’s a promise,” he says seriously, and Arthur can’t help but nod.

“So, you don’t mind…” he asks, gesturing between them.

Merlin grins.

“No. Get on with it.”

Arthur doesn’t need telling twice. He plants another lingering kiss on Merlin then gets off the bed to retrieve the condom he carries in his wallet and, rather more sheepishly, the lube from the bedside cabinet.

“You kept that handy,” Merlin teases, raising an eyebrow, and Arthur blushes.

“Do you know what it’s been like sleeping next to you these last few days?” he says, because if Merlin can be honest then he should try too. “I’ve nearly gone mad trying not to touch you.”

Merlin smiles and it’s a sweet, fragile thing.

“Touch me now,” he says.

Arthur shucks off his trousers and climbs back on top of him, still as careful as before. Merlin wastes no time in prising down Arthur’s boxers, so Arthur returns the favour. They kiss slowly, affectionately, as Arthur brings Merlin’s knees up towards his body. He sees Merlin wince in pain and he almost stops, but Merlin shakes his head.

“Please, Arthur…”

“Tell me if it hurts too much,” Arthur says worriedly. He wants this so much, so badly he can barely draw breath, but it’s not worth it if it causes Merlin pain.

“I will,” Merlin promises.

Arthur opens him up slowly, moving at such a leisurely pace that Merlin begins to buck up off the bed in frustration. When he finally slides inside, Merlin moans out wantonly, gripping the sheets with his good hand as Arthur presses butterfly kisses to his cheeks.

Arthur can’t last as long as he’d like but he’s oddly not embarrassed. It’s Merlin. It’s the one person in the world who’s seen him at his very worst. They’ve been through too much together for Arthur to want to hide anymore.

He takes Merlin’s cock in his hand as his orgasm subsides, and works him to release. Merlin’s prettily flushed, his hair damp with sweat as his breathing quickens, and Arthur marvels at the sight of him. He’s never seen anyone so beautiful in his life. Never had sex that felt like this before.

They lie together for a long time after, Merlin running his fingers through Arthur’s hair, tracing patterns on his chest. He ghosts his hand over Arthur’s scar, a reassurance in his touch, and Arthur is grateful. He’ll never stop being grateful to Merlin for everything he’s shown him. The man is a gift beyond compare.

But the afterglow can only last so long. Arthur catches sight of the clock and heaves an inward sigh.

“I have to go."

Merlin struggles to sit up.

"But wait, we didn't-" 

"We’ll figure it out when I get back, okay?" Arthur says firmly. "Come nightfall, you’ll be out of here.”

“But–”

“Shh. Get some sleep.”

Arthur’s waits until Merlin’s eyes have closed and his breathing has evened out before he leaves. He can’t bear to go before then, and miss the moment when Merlin succumbs to sleep; the way his face loses that defensive edge it always takes on in waking moments.

It's hard to go. But he knows he has to. This all ends today.

  
  
  
  


When he gets to town, he sets up his laptop in his usual spot and then checks his voicemail. He’s only had one (extremely strained) conversation with Uther since the events of the other day, and he has no intention of speaking to him today, an email update will suffice. He feels like his father will sense what he’s planning the second he hears Arthur’s voice, and he’s not willing to take the risk.

But there is a message from a number he doesn’t recognise and he listens, curious.

“Arthur, this is Uther’s assistant, Gilli. I need you to call me as soon as you get this.”

Why would Gilli be calling him? Presumably he has some message to pass on from Uther, but is there a reason his father can’t call himself?

Arthur briefly wonders if Uther’s been arrested, if some evidence has been found to link him to the kidnapping somehow. The idea doesn’t make him as upset as it probably should, and he quickly hit the call-back button on his phone to prevent that train of thought going any further.

Gilli answers almost immediately.

“Arthur?”

“Yeah, it’s me. What’s going on? Did Uther–”

“We don’t have much time,” Gilli cuts in urgently, and he sounds absolutely nothing like the stuttering, nervous man Arthur’s encountered so many times before. “I’m making the decision to trust you, because I think you’re different from your father, or at least I hope you are. You need to let Emrys go, right now.”

Arthur frowns in confusion.

“What? Gilli, what are you talking about?”

“Uther’s plan. It’s nothing to do with Emrys or even politics-”

“Just- just slow down, what plan are you talking about?”

“The plan wasn’t about the kidnapping,” Gilli hisses down the phone. “That was all a distraction to delay the vote. Uther’s been working on something much bigger for a long time, and he didn’t know how long it would take. But it’s finished. I saw it today. _We’ve run out of time_.”

“You’re not making any sense,” Arthur snaps, frustrated. “What plan? What’s been finished?”

“Uther and Aredian have been developing a device to remotely access every single microchip embedded in every single Magical in the country.”

Arthur frowns, disbelieving.

“To do what?”

“Arthur, they’re going to murder them all. They’re going to use the microchips to kill them where they stand.”

For a second Arthur’s vision goes completely white. And then common sense prevails. They can’t do that. It’s not possible. And more importantly, his father wouldn’t.

“That’s insane,” he says coldly. “Listen, I don’t know what your game is-”

“It’s not a game!” Gilli shouts desperately. “They’re using magic! The device lets them flood every microchip with a huge surge of power; it’ll stop people’s hearts in an instant!”

“This is genocide you’re talking about,” Arthur raps out, sharp and crisp. “You expect me to believe that my father would want to murder an entire group of people?”

“Wake up, Arthur! Your dad is consumed by hatred for Magicals; he’ll stop at nothing to get rid of them! He’s been planning this for years.”

“You’re wrong,” Arthur says, his voice shaking. “He wouldn’t do this.”

He hears Gilli draw a deep breath.

“Fine. You don’t have to take my word for it anyway. I’m sending you an email now.”

It flashes up on his computer screen a few seconds later and Arthur clicks it open with unsteady fingers.

It’s a series of attachments. A photo, showing a flat grey box about the size of an iPad, wired to a power generator behind it. A document full of blueprints. Several PDFs of project notes and diagrams. A roughly sketched image of a man seizing up in pain, jagged lines radiating from his neck to show how the chip buried there was transmitting its new power. 

His father’s handwriting all over them, signing off on all the research, all the funding, all the progress made.

Arthur doesn’t speak, can’t speak for a long time. Eventually Gilli’s voice comes over the line again.

“I’m sorry Arthur, I truly am, I know it’s a lot to take in. But we don’t have time to waste. You need to free Emrys right now, if we even have a chance of stopping this.”

“Why him?” Arthur asks, and his voice sounds childish, unfamiliar.

“He’s the only one strong enough to destroy the device,” Gilli says simply.

“My Merlin?” Arthur tries to cut through the white noise in his head. “They said… below average ability…”

“No. He beat the test somehow; they never got a proper read on him.”

“How do you know?”

“I work for the Institute. Special ops; I’ve been undercover at Arkstone for two years trying to find out what I can. I know things that other people aren’t privy to, and one of those things is that Merlin Emrys is one of the most powerful Magicals alive today.”

Arthur might not have believed it ten minutes ago, but after what he’s just learned about his father, anything seems possible.

“What do I do?” He asks quietly.

“Let him go. Get the ankle tag off him; get him back to London if he can’t make it himself. Your father’s keeping the device in Arkstone. Seventh floor, room twenty two. It’s locked up securely but Emrys should be able to take care of that.”

“What does he need to do when we get in?”

Gilli sighs.

“I don’t know exactly. I’ve already tried tampering with it myself, but it’s protected by some powerful spells. I’m hoping he can find a way to break through. If not…”

Gilli doesn’t need to finish the sentence. If they can’t disable the device… the Magicals will all die. 

Arthur’s whole body is shaking again but he doesn’t have time to lose it now, he has a job to do.

“I’ll go and get him. What if my father tries to activate it before then?”

“The march on Whitehall is tomorrow morning. He told Aredian he wanted to do it then. So the whole country will be watching as the Magicals fall.”

Gilli’s tone is very bitter and Arthur can’t help but think back to all the times he’d encountered him before, and how he never suspected a thing.

“Why are you trusting me with this?”

“There’s no-one else to trust,” Gilli says bluntly. “I ran out of options. I never thought the device would be ready so soon… If there was time to come for Emrys myself, I would have.”

Arthur stands up.

“You don’t have to. I’ll bring him back.”

“Keep your phone on. Let me know if there’s anything you need.”

And with those words, the line goes dead


	9. Chapter Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for brief violence

Merlin is still asleep when Arthur gets back to the house and he reaches out one trembling hand to smooth back his hair. He’s still in shock and he has no idea how to explain this to Merlin when he can’t even come to terms with it himself.

But the clock is ticking so he shakes Merlin awake.

“You’re back,” Merlin says, and gives him a shy smile. “Arthur, what you said before, did you mean-”

Arthur cuts him off with a hand gesture.

“I have to- I have to tell you something.”

And then he relates exactly what Gilli said to him, opening up his laptop to show Merlin the documents he downloaded, watching as Merlin’s face grows paler and paler.

“He thinks I can destroy this?” Merlin whispers at last. 

He nods in reply.

“Arthur, I don’t know how…”

Arthur’s stomach sinks.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay, it’s just… we’ll think of something else if you can’t…”

But he trails off because there is nothing else and he thinks Merlin sees it in his eyes, because his mouth sets into a hard line.

“Doesn’t mean I won’t try,” he says and then he’s struggling out of the bed, standing unaided for the first time in three days even as Arthur rushes over to support him.

“Help me get dressed.”

Arthur quickly dresses him. Normally Merlin objects and tries to do it all by himself, but now he’s letting Arthur take control; the time for pride is gone. Arthur runs to get him some shoes as well and then hesitates as he sees the ankle tag.

“I have to take this off.”

“Finally,” Merlin breathes, sitting down on the bed and holding his leg out.

And then Arthur can’t move.

When he does this, when he takes this off, Merlin will forget everything that’s happened in the last three weeks. He’ll have to explain it all over again, and what if Merlin doesn’t believe him? What if he panics to find himself in a strange place with a strange man?

But more importantly, everything that’s passed between them will be forgotten. From the conversations they’ve had, to the love they’ve made. Everything that’s been building between them will be lost.

Arthur knew this moment was coming, but he’s not prepared for it now it’s here. He’s not prepared at all.

  
  
  
  


“Come on,” Merlin says. He lets impatience colour his tone because it’s better than sounding afraid, which is what he really is. Lead settled into his stomach the moment Arthur finished telling him Uther’s plan; too huge and horrifying to properly take in.

All the Magicals he knows and loves. Freya and Edwin and Mordred and a whole world beyond them. All wiped out in the blink of an eye.

He’ll go mad if he tries to think about it; he has to take this one step at a time. He’s just getting the suppressor taken off, that’s all, and then he’ll put his shoes on, and he and Arthur will get in the car. He doesn’t need to go any further than that right now. 

And yet Arthur’s not moving.

“Just… I need a minute…” he mumbles.

“We don’t have a minute!” Merlin says, louder than he means to. Because Arthur looks genuinely terrible; he’s milk pale and shivering all over. Perhaps the shock’s only just sunk in. It’s worse for Arthur, he suddenly realises; at least Merlin doesn’t have the horror of knowing that his father’s been planning a genocide.

“Hey, come on, it’s okay,” he says, trying to sound calm. “Just get this off and then we can get going. No need to panic.”

He nudges Arthur with his toe, but Arthur stays lost in thought a moment. Then he stands up abruptly.

“I haven’t been honest with you,” he says. 

“Arthur, we don’t have to do this now-”

“No, we do, we do because… because…”

Arthur stands there, worrying his lip with his teeth, and Merlin feels himself soften.

“Arthur…” he says, trying to convey that whatever it is, it doesn’t matter.

“Because that thing has an inbuilt memory wipe,” Arthur says in a rush. “They… they made it with magic. And when I take it off, you won’t remember anything about your time here. You’ll forget all this. You’ll forget… me.”

Merlin stares at Arthur, trying to figure out exactly what’s going on. It must be a joke, except it’s hardly the time for it and Arthur’s face is deadly serious.

“That’s not possible,” he says slowly.

Arthur’s face crumples.

“I’m so sorry, please don’t hate me. I wanted to tell you, but talking to you was… I needed it and I thought it didn’t matter and then… I didn’t know what to do…”

“No, Arthur, you don’t understand,” Merlin interrupts. “It’s not possible to wipe someone’s memory. Not even with magic.”

“What?”

“Magic doesn’t work like that,” Merlin says gently. “It can’t alter the brain in that way. It can temporarily confuse or befuddle it, but there’s no way it could extract memories, especially not for such a specific time frame.”

“I thought…”

“Magic isn’t so far from science as people think. It deals much better with physical elements than anything else. There’s a reason no-one comes to us for cures for depression or schizophrenia. We have no idea how to go poking around in someone’s brain in such a specialised way. That’s why those old films about Magicals reading minds are such a load of rubbish. How could anyone even pick a coherent thought out of a mind and be able to understand what-”

Arthur holds a hand up for Merlin to stop. He realises he’s rambling, but that’s because he doesn’t want to see the look in Arthur’s eyes as he realises that his father’s lied to him once again.

“They… they said…” he whispers at last and then breaks off.

“I’m sorry Arthur. I think they lied because…”

It’s Merlin’s turn to break off. He has no idea why they lied. What possible advantage could Uther have to gain from this?

“I don’t know why,” he admits.

“I do,” Arthur says, and the words sound like a monumental effort. “It’s because they had no intention of taking the suppressor off. But they knew I wouldn’t agree to the job if they told me upfront that they planned to…”

“To kill me,” Merlin finishes tonelessly, dropping his gaze to the floor. It makes perfect sense. Uther would never have let him leave here alive.

How would he have done it? Sent Val and Cenred back to finish the job? Thrown him into some unmarked grave on the Moors? So that the police could never find him, so that his mum would never know what happened to him…

“Kill you…”

Merlin looks up and Arthur’s crying.

Proper heaving sobs, his shoulders working up and down, his hands trembling.

“Arthur?”

“They were going to kill you. Oh God, they were going to kill you…”

He can barely get the words out. 

Merlin stands quickly, ignoring the ache of his body. 

“Hey, shhh, it’s alright. They didn’t. I’m still here. I’m here, Arthur.”

He pulls Arthur into an embrace, as tight as he can, not even noticing the press on his ribs.

Arthur buries his face in Merlin’s neck and weeps like a child.

“My dad… my dad made that device, Merlin. How-how could he? How could he?” 

Arthur feels small in his arms and Merlin’s never thought of him that way before. He’s suddenly so fragile, so breakable. Merlin doesn’t want to let him go; he wants to keep holding on to him and protecting him, and making sure no-one hurts him again. It’s a heady, primal instinct and he can’t remember feeling it for anyone in his life before. 

  
  
  
  


“Merlin…” Arthur chokes out and Merlin nuzzles the side of his face, murmuring nonsense words of comfort because there’s nothing to say, not really. He can’t make this better for Arthur. He can only try and pick up the pieces where they’ve fallen.

He’d like to stay like this for a while but there’s no time and they both know it so he gently detaches. 

“I know it hurts, I know, but we have to go now. We have to fix this, okay?”

Arthur nods, childlike and trusting. He swipes at his eyes.

“Take the tag off. I promise nothing will happen.”

“But if…”

“I promise,” Merlin says firmly.

He feels a moment of doubt as Arthur opens the first of the three tiny locks on the device. Memory wipes weren’t real, but it was theoretically possible that the suppressor could be a weapon in some other kind of way. But he doesn’t have a choice, because he can’t destroy the device without his magic. The tag has to come off, even if Uther’s programmed in a nasty surprise for him.

Merlin holds his breath as Arthur inserts the key into the last lock. The tag clicks open and falls to the floor. Nothing happens.

And then, a sudden rush of heat through him, so powerful he cries out in alarm. But it only takes a few seconds to realise there’s no pain, no mortal injury. The heat is loving, calming. It spreads through every part of him, licking at his body like a friendly flame, balancing him out. 

It’s his magic. It’s returned to him. 

The wave of emotion that breaks over him is so strong that he nearly cries too, in sheer relief and joy. Instead he lets his feelings out in another way, stretching a hand out towards the tag and levitating it into the air, before making a fist and watching it disintegrate in a shower of dust.

  
  
  
  


He’s grinning, stupidly, ridiculously, even though they’re far from out of the woods yet. Arthur’s looking at him slightly apprehensively, as though he thinks Merlin might disintegrate him too with his newly recovered powers. Merlin smiles at him instead and opens up his hands.

“It’s back!” He says giddily.

And then he collapses onto the floor.

Arthur is at his side in an instant.

“What’s wrong? Are you alright? Merlin!”

“It’s fine,” he says unsteadily, letting Arthur prop him against the bed. “It’s just… it’s been a while. My magic’s not very stable.”

“Will you be alright?”

“Yeah, it just needs time to settle. A day or two and I’ll be right as rain.”

They both see the problem immediately. They don’t have a day or two for it to steady out. Merlin needs to destroy the device that night.

“Or a few hours, I’m sure that’ll be fine too,” Merlin says weakly.

“Is there anything we can do to settle you faster?” Arthur asks grimly.

“I don’t know. Liquids, maybe. Light food only. I should probably take a blanket for the car journey.”

Arthur cocks his head.

“They sound like flu remedies.”

“Ha, yeah, there’s your inside scoop on magic. It acts a lot like the common cold when it gets out of whack,” Merlin says as Arthur helps him to his feet. The fall aggravated his injuries and he hisses in pain.

“I’ll get you a pill,” Arthur says.

“No! I can’t. Nothing that’ll make me fuzzy. I need to focus.”

“But you’re in pain.”

“I’ll survive,” Merlin says through gritted teeth. 

Arthur can clearly tell by the set of Merlin’s jaw that he’s resolute, because he doesn’t waste any more time arguing. He sits Merlin on the bed and then gets all their stuff ready, packing the car before coming back up to help Merlin down the stairs.

“Should I carry you?”

“No! It was bad enough you did it the one time.”

Arthur smirks slightly, the tension in his face easing for a moment.

“You’re lucky I’m so big and strong.”

“No, _you’re_ lucky you found someone willing to put up with your caveman tendencies.”

“I’m hardly a caveman, Merlin,” Arthur says as he supports him off the last step. “Caveman don’t carry people, they hit them over the head and drag them- oh.”

Merlin can’t help but laugh at the slightly crestfallen look on Arthur’s face.

“Yeah, clearly you forgot how our first date ended.”

“Clearly,” Arthur says and then gives Merlin a worried look as he opens the door. “Is it weird that we’re joking about this?”

“What isn’t weird about this?” Merlin asks, gesturing between the two of them.

“True.”

Arthur fussily tucks not one but two blankets around Merlin when he gets in the passenger seat, and then turns the heat up as well.

“I’ll roast!” Merlin protests as they roll out of the driveway.

“Then drink some water. And Lucozade, lots of Lucozade.”

“Who even buys Lucozade anymore?” Merlin grumbles as he reaches for a bottle.

“People who hike on the moors and know about keeping their electrolytes topped up,” Arthur says loftily. 

“Did you know you can charge your phone with some Lucozade and an onion? I don’t really trust any drink you can do that with.”

Merlin realises they’re deliberately keeping the conversation light, neither of them wanting to talk about what’s coming. He’s glad. He’ll freeze up if he dwells on it. Better to just pretend that this is a perfectly normal car ride and not think about what’s waiting for them at their destination.

They talk a while longer and then Arthur puts some music on and Merlin falls asleep, lulled by the movement of the car.

When he wakes up again, he’s in pain. He winces as he stretches out and Arthur notices, of course.

“Sore?”

“Mmm.”

Merlin would normally have taken some medication at this point but he can’t today. He tries to breathe deeply and ignore the ache in his hand and ribs.

“At least take some ibuprofen.”

Merlin swallows two down, as though it will help.

“Can’t you use a bit of magic?” Arthur says. “Maybe just on your fingers, or…”

“I’m a bad healer at the best of times; right now my magic’s so erratic it’d probably transport us to China or something.”

“Can you transport us places?” Arthur says curiously. “Like, get us to London?”

“I’m gonna write you a list of the things magic can and can’t do, okay? Human teleportation would be like the most difficult and insanely risky thing in the world.”

“Well, that’s a huge disappointment,” Arthur says dryly. “Is there anything you Magicals actually can do?”

“We make a great cup of tea,” Merlin says. “And we can conjure up small birds to dress us in the morning like Disney characters.”

“Oh that does sound useful.”

“It’s pretty great.”

Merlin shifts in his seat and laughs a little.

“Human teleportation, honestly. Did you read that in one of your dad’s books or-”

Too late he realises what he’s said.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s okay,” Arthur says tiredly. “He is the elephant in the room; we probably can’t keep avoiding the topic.”

Merlin pauses, weighing his words.

“Look, this is probably the definition of cold comfort but you’re not… you’re not like him.”

“Says the hostage to his kidnapper.”

“Says the Magical who’s just had his magic released by a man who knows what the right thing to do is,” Merlin retorts. “Not to mention the man who Gilli trusted enough to confide in. Do you know what a huge risk he took, Arthur? Putting his faith in you? He wouldn’t have done that if he hadn’t known you’re nothing like your dad deep down.”

There’s a long silence as Arthur seems to digest these words.

“I should never have taken this job,” he says at last.

“Yeah, obviously. You were wrong. But you’re making up for it now. And I happen to be a big believer in redemption.”

“Redemption,” Arthur says softly, and he looks very far away for a moment. 

“It is possible, Arthur,” Merlin says seriously. “You don’t have to be defined by your past forever.”

“I was looking for redemption when… when I agreed to do this. I wanted my father to forgive me.”

“For what?” Merlin asks.

And then Arthur tells him the story of an eighteen year old boy who went to university and fell in love. And how that boy was betrayed, and how he gave his whole life up in service of a debt that never belonged to him in the first place.

Merlin doesn’t know what to say at first. He can’t get the image of younger Arthur out of his head, gentler and less guarded, excitedly bringing the girl he loves to the place where he works. There had been hope then, probably, and joy for life, and faith in the future. And then Uther had stolen all that away from him; made it so Arthur could never slip from his grasp again.

Merlin doesn’t blame this Sophia, even though what she did was wrong. He knows what it is to be young and desperate and driven mad with grief.

“You don’t need redemption for that,” Merlin says finally, reaching a hand out to touch Arthur’s knee. “How could you have known what she was planning?”

“I let her in.”

Merlin honestly doesn’t know if Arthur means into the building, or into his heart. Either way, it’s time he stopped punishing himself.

“The reasons for what she did had nothing to do with you. They started long before you came on the scene. It was Arkstone’s fault she was hell-bent on revenge in the first place. It’s down to your dad again, Arthur, not you. Never you.” 

“I would have argued with you yesterday,” Arthur says quietly. “But today I… he’s insane, isn’t he? My dad’s insane, Merlin.”

Evil is the word Merlin would use, but it’s not the one Arthur needs to hear right now.

“Whatever he is, you don’t have to answer to him anymore.”

Arthur focuses on the darkening road for a while.

“He’ll go to prison,” he says at last. “When all this comes out.”

“Yes,” Merlin says. “Do you think you can handle that?”

“It might be the best place for him,” Arthur says and then instantly looks ashamed. “Or… I don’t know Merlin. I don’t… I don’t know anything.”

“It’s alright,” Merlin reassures him. “One step at a time, yeah? Just get us to London.”

Arthur nods.

Ten minutes later he insists Merlin eat some of the food he hastily shoved in a bag before they left, and Merlin lets him fuss, because it seems to help Arthur if he has someone to look after.

If they get out of this alive, Merlin swears to himself that he’ll look after Arthur too, because it’s about time someone did.

Eating helps the pain a little. He probes at the corners of his magic, wondering if he should try another spell in a little bit. He doesn’t want to use up his reserves; at the same time he needs to flex his magic muscles a bit. He’s out of practice and he can’t afford to choke later.

He gets his chance when Arthur pulls over on a country road so they can relieve themselves. After waving off Arthur’s offer of help (“Jesus Christ, no, I can definitely handle this one!”) Merlin leans against the car and waits for him to return.

It feels so good to be out in the fresh air again. The cold wind has never felt so bracing against his face, he breathes it all in and sighs with pleasure. He’ll never take his freedom to move about for granted again, or the way the stars look laid out against the sky, distant and brilliant. He closes his eyes for a second and drinks it all in, feeling his magic calming slightly with every breath he takes.

“You alright?”

“Nice to be outside,” Merlin says simply. 

Then he seized by a sudden impulse and he turns to face Arthur.

“Hey, watch this.”

He holds out both of his hands, palms facing down, and whispers a spell.

His merlin tattoos begin to glow.

He hears a little sharp intake of breath from Arthur, which turns into a full blown gasp when the tattoos begin to move.

The little birds start flapping their wings, and he concentrates harder, feeding the magic through his body until they both take flight and peel off his hands and into the air.

Arthur shouts his name in surprise as the merlins start to fly around his head, swooping and soaring back and forth, illuminated from within against the night sky. He lets them flit about for a bit, enjoying how his magic is uncurling inside him, like a lazy cat after a long sleep. 

  
  
  
  


Arthur’s face is a picture of awe, and Merlin sends one of the birds to perch on his shoulder, delighting in Arthur’s little sound of astonishment.

He doesn’t want to use up all his energy so after a few seconds more he regretfully calls the birds back to him. They nestle into his cupped palms, and he closes his hands over the top of them, wanting to show Arthur one last piece of flair. When he throws his hands open again, they’re empty. Then he flips his palms over and the merlins are back on his skin, like they never left.

Arthur laughs, loud and joyful.

“That was incredible! That was…”

And he kisses Merlin swiftly, as though he can’t help himself.

Oh, but Merlin loves the feel of those lips against his. Arthur feels like magic feels; warm, and homey, and _right_.

But he doesn’t know if he can keep him. Even though he wants to. Right and wrong be damned, he wants to keep Arthur.

When they get back in the car, Arthur tucks the blankets around him, cocooning him in safely.

“All tattoos should do that,” he says as he pulls back out into the road.

“Yeah, but can you imagine all those flaming skulls and three headed snakes coming to life?”

“Okay, so maybe bikers aren’t allowed the magical ones.”

Merlin snorts.

“Seriously though… I think that was the first time I ever saw magic used for something other than… well, it was pretty amazing.”

Merlin realises with a slight lurch in his stomach that the only magic Arthur’s really seen up close and personal before was the spell that nearly killed him all those years ago.

“I could show you a lot of stuff,” he says. “Not just amazing things. Practical things, useful things, things that can help other people. There’s a lot that magic can do.”

“I’d like to see,” Arthur says sincerely.

The sat-nav interrupts momentarily and Merlin thinks they’ve lost the thread of that particular conversation until Arthur speaks again.

“Your tattoos were the first thing I noticed about you,” he says. “If you’d done that little trick the first time we met, I probably would have realised I was attracted to you a lot sooner.”

Arthur’s blushing slightly and Merlin can’t help but be charmed.

“I thought you were hot when I first saw you,” he says. “But then you started following me around so I changed that to creepy.”

Arthur laughs.

“I definitely deserved that.”

“What did you like about my tattoos?” Merlin says, leaning a bit closer to the driving seat.

“I’d never seen ones like them before,” Arthur says thoughtfully. “Or maybe I had but I didn’t like them until I saw them on you.”

He glances at Merlin.

“Why did you get them?”

Merlin shrugs.

“Different reasons. Like I told you on our ‘date’ – and yes Arthur, I refuse to stop putting date in annoying scare quotes – I lived with a tattoo artist in Japan and she got me interested. Then I liked the merlins so much it seemed logical to get the maple leaves in Norway.”

“And the one on your chest?”

Merlin draws in a breath and Arthur must hear it.

“You don’t have to tell me,” he says quickly. “If it’s personal.”

“It is personal,” Merlin says. “But I don’t… I don’t mind.”

Arthur knows that his father is dead. He thinks it was in whatever stupid information pack Arkstone prepared on him, so there was no point holding it back. He’s told Arthur he was shot by the police in a case of mistaken identity but he never elaborated any further than that. Arthur said he was sorry to hear it and the discussion was closed.

Talking about Balinor is still almost impossible, after all this time. He did a lot of his healing when he went back to Ireland again, but even now he can only bear to discuss it with his mum. Even Freya and Edwin only know the basics. And Gwaine, of course, who was there for him when he first faced up to what had happened.

He reminds himself to write to Gwaine, if he makes it to tomorrow. And Ai, and Elena. Good people were hard to find and good friends were in even shorter supply. He doesn’t want to do everything on his own anymore. One of the hardest won lessons of the last few weeks was that he needs help sometimes, that he can’t only ever rely on himself. He vowed to never trust anyone again when he first woke up in that cell, but where would that get him? He’d probably end up like Uther. It was far better to take the risk and reach out to other people, no matter the consequences.

That in mind, he wants to tell the truth.

“My father had a smaller version of the same tattoo. I got it in memory of him.”

“How long after he died was that?” Arthur asks, sympathy in his tone.

“A few years. I was… I lost my way after he died. For a long time. I mean, there was a year where I just laid on the couch and watched TV. I couldn’t see the point in anything. And then my mum sent me off travelling, and I started to see what else was out there in the world, and it got a little easier. So I went back to Ireland where he died and I got the tattoo as a tribute to him.”

Merlin draws the blanket up to his chin and looks out of the window.

“I was there. When it happened. When he got shot. I saw it all.”

“Oh Jesus,” Arthur says quietly.

“It’s better than it was,” Merlin says, staring up at the stars. “But it still hurts. I don’t think it’ll ever stop hurting.”

“I am so sorry,” Arthur says and his voice is bruised.

“Yeah,” Merlin says, and he suddenly doesn’t want to talk about it anymore.

Then something strikes him.

“Arthur, I don’t… my dad removed my microchip, I don’t have one. I’m probably the only Magical in the country your dad can’t eliminate tomorrow.”

He expects Arthur to look shocked but instead he looks slightly uncomfortable.

“I know. Not about your dad removing it but… Arkstone knew you didn’t have a chip.”

“Oh,” Merlin says. “Were you ever going to ask-”

“No,” Arthur says firmly. “My dad might have wanted me to find out but I didn’t. Not my business.”

Merlin digests this, settling back in my seat.

“I’ll be arrested,” he says. “If anyone finds out.”

It feels odd, to talk about this out loud. The secret he’s guarded for so long.

“I won’t tell,” Arthur says swiftly. “And the bill is sure to pass now, it won’t be illegal anymore.”

Then his face darkens. 

"If there’s any Magicals left to benefit.”

“Don’t get nihilist on me.”

“Why, because we’re on our way to prevent an attempted genocide?”

Arthur’s laugh is hollow and Merlin reaches across to squeeze his knee.

“We can do this. Even if my magic’s not up to scratch, we can maybe move the device? Or go to the police? The government might have some way of shutting all the microchips down or something.”

It’s all just maybes but Merlin’s not prepared to give up yet, even if he can’t destroy the thing. They’ll have to find another way, they’ll just have to.

Arthur nods, seemingly composing himself.

“You’re right.”

“I usually am,” Merlin says, and gets the half-smile he wants. It’s no good for Arthur to despair now. They’re going to need every bit of cunning they can summon.

He eats a bit more and makes Arthur eat and drink something, and then practices tiny little spells to get his magic ready. Arthur bans him from spelling the radio on and off after a while, though he does laugh when Merlin unbuttons his shirt to the navel with a wink of his eye. But after that he insists Merlin goes back to sleep for a while, to conserve his energy.

When he wakes up again, they’ve arrived.

  
  
  
  


Arthur has a horrible sense of deja-vu as they sneak past the night security guard in Arkstone’s lobby. At least this time he’s fully aware of the whispered spell Merlin casts to send the guard to sleep for a bit. But it still feels ominously like that night so many years ago, and it does nothing to calm his mounting nerves.

They use the back stairwell to get to the seventh floor, hoping they won’t run into any employees who might have stayed late. It’s nearly eleven, but Arthur knows that plenty of people work overtime at Arkstone. The seventh floor, however, is deserted.

Arthur wonders if Merlin can hear the hammering of his heart as they approach room twenty two. Arthur’s not exactly surprised to find that it’s locked with a keypad and what looks like an iris scanner, but his stomach drops anyway.

“I don’t have clearance to get in here,” he hisses and Merlin waves him aside. He stands in front of the lock a while, examining it, then he puts his hand on it and says a few words. The keypad beeps green. Then, to Arthur’s amazement, Merlin blinks and one of his eyes changes colour – softening from a bright blue to a green mix. He puts his eye up to the scanner, and there’s a whirring noise and then a soft click. He presses down on the handle and the door swings open.

“What did you just do?”

Merlin grins at him.

“That mad anarcho-communist I told you about taught me how to manipulate keypads. He did a lot of breaking and entering, apparently. And the scanner holds the image of the last person who accessed it; I just extracted it and transferred it onto my own eye.”

“Is that… is that my father’s eye?” 

“Probably, yeah.”

“Okay, that’s amazing and really creepy; can you change it back now please?”

Merlin laughs and blinks, and then both his eyes are ocean blue again.

“Is all that…” Arthur waves a vague hand. “Normal? Can most Magicals do that?”

“No,” Merlin says. “I think… I think most wouldn’t be able to.”

“You really are special,” Arthur says, and then cringes slightly to hear himself. Merlin gives him a wry smile.

“Very flattering but not really the time. Come on.”

Slightly apprehensively, Arthur pushes the door open. He half expects there to be some kind of trap in place, but it just looks like a fairly normal meeting room. Except for the huge processing unit set up in the corner, lights flashing on and off, and an intricate series of wires trailing across it.

Merlin walks straight over to it and Arthur resists the urge to pull him back, to check if it’s safe first. Merlin’s in charge here though, he’s the one who can destroy the damn thing. Arthur just needs to get out of his way and clamp down on this overwhelming desire to protect him. 

He hovers in the background as Merlin surveys the machine in silence.

“As far as I can tell,” Merlin says slowly. “This is the power source. The actual device is… this.”

He holds up a flat grey tablet that Arthur vaguely remembers from Gilli’s email.

“It actually looks a bit like the ones they use to test your magic,” Merlin sighs, turning it over carefully in his hands. “But I don’t know whether I’ll need to turn it on to disable it, or whether turning it on will set it off.”

“Jesus, don’t turn it on then,” Arthur says quickly.

Merlin rolls his eyes.

“Yes, thank you, very helpful. I’m just gonna see what I can read from it.”

He puts the tablet flat on the table and then presses his hands to the top of it, closing his eyes.

Arthur waits for about five minutes, anxiety building within him.

At last Merlin opens his eyes again.

“It’s very intricate,” he says worriedly. “I’m not particularly technical so most of the coding doesn’t make sense to me.”

“That’s what you’re doing? Reading the code?”

“Not exactly. Like I said, I can’t do that. I’m actually pulsing my magic into the machine with the directive to find a way to shut it down, so ideally my magic will highlight its weak point for me. But it keeps getting blocked because part of the device has a protection spell on it. God knows how they figured that one out, but it’s strong and it keeps obstructing me.”

Merlin brings his hand to his forehead and Arthur suddenly notices the beads of sweat there.

“Doesn’t help that I’m not really at my best. I can’t really tell when the device is blocking me and when I’m blocking myself.”

“It’s alright,” Arthur says, trying to sound calm. “Just take your time.”

Merlin nods and puts his hand back on the device. Another agonising fifteen minutes pass, and then Merlin rears back like he’s been shocked.

“Are you okay?” Arthur says, hurrying forward.

“Yeah,” Merlin gasps. “Just… my magic’s not really up to this. It won’t cooperate. It keeps letting the protection spell throw me out.”

His face is pale and sweaty and Arthur pulls a bottle of water from his bag and makes Merlin drink.

“Do you want to sit down for a bit?”

“No,” Merlin says determinedly, and he goes back over.

This time it only takes five minutes before he has to stop again. But he won’t rest, and it takes two more tries before Arthur puts his foot down.

“Just stop! You need a break. Sit down and eat something for a minute.”

“I don’t have time,” Merlin snaps.

“You’re wearing yourself out.”

“I’m fine,” Merlin says although his breathing is hard and fast, and his skin is almost translucent now.

“If you don’t stop, you might kill yourself.”

“And if I do stop, I might kill everyone else!”

Arthur swallows. It’s an impasse and he can’t deny Merlin’s logic. But he looks to be in a bad way.

“Alright, just… look didn’t you say magic only works when you’re centred? Just eat this one energy bar and practice your breathing for a minute, and you might have better luck.”

Merlin frowns unhappily, but he stomps over and lets Arthur push him down into a seat. After he’s finished the energy bar, a tiny bit of colour has returned to his cheeks.

“Merlin,” Arthur says intently. “Don’t panic. Stay with me.”

“I don’t know if I can do this,” Merlin says, and his voice wavers.

“You can do it. I know you can.”

“There’s too much at stake, I-I can’t, I can’t do it.”

“You can. You can, Merlin, I swear.”

Arthur kneels down to wrap his arms around Merlin, trying to put some of his love and faith into the embrace.

“Just relax,” he murmurs in his ear and Merlin nods against him.

“Okay. I’m- I’m gonna try again.”

He walks back over to the tablet and draws a deep breath. Then he shuts his eyes and places his hands over it.

Minutes tick by. It’s well past midnight now and Arthur can’t help but count in his head. The march is assembling at nine in the morning. What time will Uther arrive here to prep the device? If Merlin really can’t do this, how long will they have to try the other options? To talk to the police, the government?

His thoughts come to an abrupt halt when Merlin literally flies across the room to land with a thump six feet away from the device.

“Merlin!” Arthur shouts in a panic, but Merlin is incongruously grinning all over his face.

“I’ve got it! It chucked me out but I’ve got it now. I know how to disarm it.”

Arthur pulls him to his feet.

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

Merlin’s face is shining; he looks alive and ready for action.

“I’ll have to dive back in but I know where I’m going now.”

He fixes Arthur with a look.

“It’s gonna try and throw me off again, will you hold me in place? I need to keep physical contact with it.”

Arthur nods and gets behind him as he approaches the device again. Arthur wraps his arms around Merlin’s torso and then widens his stance, trying to make sure he’s as secure as possible.

“Okay. Hold on tight.”

Merlin had done a lot to demystify magic in Arthur’s eyes over the past few weeks, but this is still completely insane. Merlin is literally bucking and thrashing to keep a hold on the tablet, and the thing seems to be doing its best to bodily expel him from its vicinity. Arthur nearly loses his grip several times but he manages to stay upright and keep Merlin in place. It’s worth it when he hears a triumphant shout.

“I’ve almost got it! I’ve blasted through the protection spell; I just need to destroy the central processor.”

Arthur lets out a little whoop of joy, and between that and Merlin’s noises of exertion, perhaps that’s why they don’t notice the door opening until it’s too late.

“Get the hell away from that device.” 

It’s Uther.

And he’s pointing a gun at them.

Arthur freezes in terror. His grip on Merlin loosens, and the device’s protective wards finally achieve their goal of throwing him off. Merlin shoots backwards and hits the wall hard, where he lies in a dazed heap.

Arthur starts to go to him.

“Don’t you fucking move,” Uther hisses.

Then he trains his gun on Merlin’s crumpled form.

“Dad…” Arthur whimpers, his mouth dry.

“Not another word, Arthur,” his father says, voice dangerously low. “There is no reasonable explanation you could offer for being here. Nothing you could say that would explain why _that_ is here, and missing its suppressor no less.”

Arthur flinches to hear his father refer to Merlin that way, but it’s only a drop in the ocean compared to the blinding fear he’s feeling right now.

“I put a spell on him,” Merlin suddenly croaks out, attempting to sit up even as blood trickles down from the back of his head. “I magicked him, made him bring me here.”

“Merlin, no,” Arthur says frantically. Merlin clearly thinks that he’s about to die, and his last act is one of stupid, useless bravery – to save Arthur from his father’s wrath.

“Don’t lie to me,” Uther spits, before turning back to Arthur. “Valiant and Cenred warned me but I couldn’t bear to believe it. They told me you had grown attached, Arthur, that you actually had feelings for this… _thing_. I should have listened to them. I should have known that you would screw this up just like you’ve screwed up every other task you’ve ever turned your hand to.”

“Dad-”

“You are useless,” Uther says, disdain dripping from every word. “I could weep for all the time and energy I invested in you, and for what? You turn out like this. You are nothing but a disappointment.”

Arthur feels like someone’s slowly rotating a knife in his guts, twisting and mangling his insides until he can’t breathe properly anymore.

“Don’t talk to him like that!” Merlin says fiercely. “You’re the disappointment! You were a shit father and it’s no credit to you that Arthur turned out to be a good man in spite of that.”

“Shut up, Magical,” Uther sneers. “What would you know of goodness? Your kind are depraved, disgusting. The bonds of family mean nothing to you.”

“You’re wrong,” Arthur says shakily, and Uther turns to him in shock.

“You’re wrong,” he says again, slightly louder. “He’s not depraved. None of them are. They’re the same as us, they always were. No better or worse. You just can’t see it because… because you’re sick in the head.”

“How dare you?” Uther snarls.

“You must be sick with all the things you’ve done! You made an entire career out of ruining people’s lives! For no other reason than some genetic fluke they were born with! What did they ever do to you?” 

Arthur’s shouting now and Uther narrows his eyes.

“Magicals killed your mother-”

“No, a blood clot killed my mother! And you couldn’t handle it, so you looked for someone to blame! You blamed Magicals and you… you blamed me.”

Arthur’s crying now but he brushes the tears away impatiently, he has more he needs to say.

“You never let me be a child. You treated me like a soldier. And you withheld love to keep me in line. All this time I thought there’d be a way to earn it somehow. But it doesn’t exist, does it? There is no love left inside you.”

“I don’t know what ideas that _thing_ has been filling your head with-”

“His name is Merlin!” Arthur shouts. “And he’s a better man than you’ll ever be and I love him more than I’ll ever love you!”

The silence that follows that statement is profound. He and his father stare at each other, all barriers stripped away at last. The truth lying heavy between them.

“Love,” Uther says, and he laughs very softly. “Well, I hope it was worth it. Say goodbye.”

And he levels the gun at Merlin’s head. 

“No!” Arthur cries and Merlin gives him a sad little smile.

“Arthur, it’s okay. It’s okay. I love you. I’ll see you again, I hope. Somehow.”

He looks up at Uther.

“I only have one thing to say before I go… _Ácwele!_ ”

Instantly, the forgotten tablet rises off the table behind Uther. He turns just in time to see it hover in the air, before exploding into a thousand tiny little pieces.

“No!” Uther shouts, eyes bulging from his head. He rushes over but there’s nothing there, it’s as though the tablet never existed. 

When he swings back round there’s murder in his eyes but the diversion has bought Arthur enough time to move.

Uther raises the gun and fires.

Arthur leaps in front of Merlin.

He doesn’t feel anything and for a moment he thinks the gun misfired, that they’ve both been saved.

And then he hits the floor and sees the blood start to spread across his shirt.

The pain kicks in but it’s not the agony he thought it would be. It’s dulled somehow, separated from him, and he wonders if he’s already in shock.

So this is what it’s like to die.

He looks up and his dad’s standing over him, abject horror in his eyes. It’s a funny time to find out that his dad did care about him after all, at least a little bit.

He’s being pulled onto someone’s lap, his head cradled in someone’s hands. He turns to see Merlin, his face white, his mouth open like he’s screaming.

Perhaps he is screaming. Someone is, Arthur can hear them.

He tries to smile at Merlin, to let him know that it’s alright, after all. He’s rather it happened like this than the other way around. He wouldn’t have been able to go on living after losing Merlin. He didn’t have the energy to pick himself up and start again. But Merlin has a community, he has a mum who loves him, he’ll find a way to carry on. Merlin’s a fighter, a survivor.

There’s a clatter above him and Merlin looks up and shouts what sounds like a spell. Out of the corner of his eye, Arthur can see his father drop to the floor and he cranes his neck to see better. He’s unconscious but still breathing. Good. Merlin’s not a killer. 

Merlin’s too good for that. He’s everything that’s best about life and Arthur loves him more than ever now he’s leaving him. He tries to speak and tell him that but his lips won’t form the words. He hopes Merlin can see it in his eyes, anyway. 

The lights are fading now, and Arthur’s ready to go, there’s a weight on his chest that keeps getting heavier and he’s tired, very tired. He takes one last look at Merlin, and then he lets his eyes drift shut.

Everything stops.

  
  
  
  


Merlin can’t breathe. The shot only rang out moments ago and yet already there’s so much blood, spreading across Arthur’s chest, blood that Arthur needs, needs to live, oh God he can’t die now, he can’t, he can’t…

Uther’s lowered the gun, but Merlin doesn’t even care if he takes this opportunity to shoot Merlin dead, there’s no room for anything in his mind but Arthur. His hands flutter over the wound for a second, panicked, before he decides to pull Arthur into his lap, supporting his head and talking to him to keep him conscious.

Arthur doesn’t reply. His face has slackened and there’s blood trickling from his mouth. And Merlin is suddenly screaming, even though he knows it can’t help, but it’s his dad all over again and he doesn’t know what to do any more than he did back then. 

He hears the sound of the gun dropping to the floor and he looks up to see Uther backing towards the door, his face sheet white. Furious, Merlin snarls out a few words to knock him unconscious, he doesn’t have time to worry about him now.

He looks back to Arthur in his arms and whispers the words of the strongest healing spell he knows, the one that Edwin said would stitch even the deepest of wounds.

Nothing happens.

Sobbing, Merlin tries again. And again. But his magic isn’t responding, it’s as though he’s completely exhausted it.

This can’t happen now. Not when he needs it the most.

He says the spell again, pressing his hand into the hole in Arthur’s chest, but there’s only a feeble spark, not even strong enough to stem the bleeding.

Merlin howls. 

He can’t lose Arthur. He can’t he can’t he can’t he can’t he can’t-

Edwin’s voice comes into his head.

_Centre yourself. Centre your magic. Healing relies on inner balance. You have to pull it from within you._

Arthur’s eyes have slipped shut. Merlin closes his own, tries to think, tries to concentrate harder than he ever has before…

He reaches deep inside himself for his magic and he tells it what it has to do. Tells himself that this is possible, that all things are possible. That he loves Arthur and he can use that love to save him.

He lets that love fill his body, lets it ground him and make him whole. His magic builds, swells. He’s ready.

He lowers Arthur to the floor and rucks his shirt up to reveal the wound. He cups Arthur’s head in his hands, once, gently. Then he presses both hands to Arthur’s chest and says the spell.

  
  
  
  


He feels the magic flood out of him, the old familiar glow, but he doesn’t dare look until he feels movement under his hands and he lifts them up.

The bullet pushes its way out of the hole, and rolls harmlessly down Arthur’s side and onto the floor. Merlin watches, scarcely daring to breathe, as Arthur’s flesh begins to knit itself back together.

It’s not perfect where the wound joins together; it’s jagged and it’s ugly and the scar will be big. But Arthur’s heart is still beating, he’s still wonderfully, gloriously alive.

Merlin takes his phone from his pocket with quivering fingers, dials 999 and asks for an ambulance.

Arthur’s chest rises and falls, rises and falls.

Merlin lies down on the floor next to him, curls himself close into Arthur’s body, and watches his skin slowly mend. He cries, louder and longer than he has in years, sobbing all his love and relief out into Arthur’s neck. 

It’s only when the wound is scabbed over with new pink skin that Arthur blinks his eyes open.

“Merlin?” He says.

“Arthur,” Merlin chokes out.

“I… I died?” He says, sounding achingly vulnerable.

“No, you’re alive, Arthur, I promise.”

“I… I felt myself go,” Arthur says hoarsely.

“I brought you back.”

Arthur looks down at his chest, at the scar tissue barely just formed.

“You saved me,” he whispers. “I thought… I thought I was gone.”

“Never,” Merlin says. “I’ll never let you go.”

Merlin can’t stop crying, even though it’s all over now. Arthur leans out with one hand to draw him closer, and lets Merlin weep into his hair. 

They stay like that until the paramedics finally burst through the door. They lift Arthur onto a stretcher but Merlin won’t let go of his hand, so they let him keep holding it. All the way to the hospital, Merlin squeezes it tight.

Arthur squeezes back.

  
  
  
  


Arthur's in hospital for six days. Merlin refuses to leave his side that first night, resisting the doctor’s attempts to bring him away for a check-up of his own. He doesn't let go of Arthur's hand until dawn, when someone draws him to his feet and wraps him in a hug. Merlin inhales the scent of his mother's hair and breaks down in her arms. She persuades the orderly to move a second bed into Arthur's room, and makes Merlin lie down. He can't fall asleep until she gets in bed beside him, stroking his cheek and talking softly until he drifts off.

The police show up the next morning. Merlin tries to deflect but it's no use. Arthur opens his mouth and admits everything.

Merlin cries when they handcuff him to the bed. Arthur shushes him, says it's okay. Says he needs to pay for what he's done. Says this is the only way to make it right.

Merlin doesn't agree. He goes to Kara the very next day and begs her to represent Arthur at the trial. She's naturally resistant but he works and works on her. She eventually agrees, but warns Merlin that she'll be merciless; that Arthur may not thank her for it.

She proves correct. Kara's defence is based on Arthur being a victim of abuse, a vulnerable young man who Uther blackmailed and manipulated into doing his will. She tells the court about Alvarr, about Sophia, has Gilli testify about the way Uther treated his son. Arthur hates it. Merlin wonders if he might genuinely prefer going to jail than having his private life put on display like this. But Merlin's selfish and he wants to be with Arthur, whatever the cost. He can't be separated from him now.

It's worth it in the end. Arthur weeps in relief when the judge gives him a two year suspended sentence. He was less scared about going to jail then he was about leaving Merlin behind. He can't imagine a life without Merlin in it anymore.

Uther and Aredian get sentenced to life in prison. Val and Cenred get twelve years each. Most of the senior leadership of Arkstone are implicated in some way, and the company shuts down within a week.

Merlin's glad. Arthur doesn't know how he feels. He doesn't want to see his father yet but he thinks he'll visit one day. When he's ready. There are still things that need to be said.

For now he concentrates on helping the police dismantle Arkstone. He starts a file on every Magical unfairly defamed by the company. His mother's midwife and Sophia's father are at the top of the list. Arthur hopes to get justice for them all.

Merlin uses his newfound fame to call for a public enquiry into his father's death. The Irish police agree to reopen the case and, seven years on, Balinor Emrys' death is recorded as unlawful. An apology is made and Hunith is awarded a token amount of compensation (which she gives straight to charity). She's happier after that, Merlin notices. As if a weight has been lifted from her. He feels the same way.

The microchip vote goes ahead as though nothing had happened. It passes with a comfortable majority and people take to the streets to celebrate. Arthur is almost amused by how spectacularly his father's plan backfired. When the horror of Arkstone's scheme had come to light, the country had been up in arms. The news sparked the kind of revolution in attitudes that Magicals had been building towards for years. Even ThinkBritain had begrudgingly condemned Uther's actions, and Prime Minister Annis confidently promised more reforms in discrimination law to come.

Merlin’s right at the centre of it, for a short while. He understands that his kidnapping has become a cause celebre, and he’s thankful for that, but he doesn't want the limelight. He gives a couple of interviews and then retreats, letting Mordred or Morgause handle the rest of the media. And he starts using magic to make himself as inconspicuous as possible. That night in Arkstone had shown him that his magic was more powerful than he ever expected, and he feels more confident in pushing at his limits nowadays. He even masters a tricky little spell that makes it harder for strangers to recognise his face. It's only a small adjustment but it makes getting around the city a bit easier.

Arthur quietly moves into Merlin’s flat after the trial ends. They manage to keep the details of their relationship from the press, but they know it's only a matter of time. They both begin to talk about moving away, living somewhere else for a while. Having time to just themselves.

But there are people they’re happy to see. When they need to escape the city, they visit Hunith in Brighton and she helps them unwind. It’s hard at first with her and Arthur; she can’t quite forgive him for the kidnapping and she’s naturally suspicious about their relationship. But they win her over in the end. She knows a lost boy when she sees one, and she also knows what makes her son happy. People didn’t approve of her and Balinor’s relationship either, once upon a time. People aren’t always right.

Ai and Gwaine and Elena all fly over to see Merlin when he’s up to having visitors. Gwaine spends a lot of time sizing Arthur up but he plays nice when Merlin asks him to. Elena is her usual irrepressible self; she drags them on three pub crawls, almost falls in the River Thames, and gets them all banned for life from the Tower of London. Ai is an oasis of calm compared to the other two. Merlin can’t resist asking her what she thinks of Arthur and she nods in that composed way of hers.

“You’ll stay with him. For good, I think.”

And Merlin doesn’t need the Sight to know that’s probably true.

He goes back to work at the Institute. Arthur gets a temporary job at a library; he likes the peace and quiet there. He starts taking Spanish classes in the evening, attempting to pick up where he left off. Merlin tries to learn along with him; his accent is hilarious and the lessons descend into hysterical laughter more often than not. But he perseveres. 

Arthur tracks down Elyan from university, who’s now working as a translator in London. They meet for a pint once a week and Arthur’s thrilled by the normality of it all. It feels like he’s picking up the pieces of the life that was interrupted all those years ago. Like he’s building a different future.

So they like being social. But most of all, they like it when they're alone. When they shut the door to the flat and the whole world disappears. When Merlin curls up against Arthur on the sofa, head fitted against the curve of Arthur's neck and Arthur reads aloud to him, hand idly stroking through Merlin's hair. When they breathe as one. When there's only love between them.

  
  
  
  



	10. Epilogue

Mondays, Gwen works alone. She’s been at the White Dragon Café for six months now and they haven’t had a busy Monday yet. It’s nice to start the week so peacefully.

She bakes a batch of scones and banana bread before opening the doors, then she sits down behind the counter with a cup of tea. She’s thinking about the night ahead of her, how her girlfriend’s coming home after a weekend away. Gwen wants to cook something special, something that says ‘I missed you.’ Something that says ‘I always miss you and I hate when you go away and maybe you should stay with me forever?’

Not for the first time recently, her thoughts stray to the engagement ring she saw in Astley’s shop window last month. And how good it would look on her girlfriend’s finger, if she could ever get up the nerve to ask.

She’s so lost in her daydream that she’s startled when the door opens, and jumps to her feet guiltily. But it’s only Merlin, giving her his customary cheery wave.

Merlin was the first regular she knew by name. She remembered him because he’s friendly and gentle and was very patient while she was still in training and mixing up drinks orders left, right, and centre. He comes in most days on his way to work and occasionally afterwards too, and he’s usually flanked by the same blond man he’s with today.

Gwen doesn’t know the blond man’s name but he’s always polite and tends to leave a generous tip in the jar, which endears him to her no end. It’s a safe assumption that he’s Merlin’s partner from the way they look at each other. He’s almost puppyish in his attentiveness, his eyes following Merlin wherever he goes; and Merlin is sweetly solicitous in return. Gwen’s been accused of being a hopeless romantic, but she can’t help herself. She likes being in love and she likes seeing it in other people. The two of them make her happy.

“Hi Gwen!” Merlin chirps. “How’s business?”

“Slow and steady, just the way I like it,” she says, leaning over the counter to peer at the rucksacks they’ve lugged in with them. “Going somewhere?”

“Peru!” Merlin says and his face is flushed with excitement. “Arthur surprised me with the tickets last week!”

Arthur. That’s the blond man’s name. She looks over to see him giving her a shy smile.

“Arthur, you need to give my girlfriend some tips on romance. I can barely get her to take me to Skegness for the weekend,” Gwen says mischievously and Arthur laughs.

“I’m being selfish really. I’m the one who always wanted to go; he’s just getting dragged along.”

“Like you could make me do anything I didn’t want to,” Merlin pipes up and Arthur gives him a little shove.

“How long will you be there for?”

“A year, we think,” Merlin says, beaming a little. “But we’ll see how it goes.”

Gwen gives him a mock glare.

“So you’ve slunk in here to tell me I’m losing my best customers, have you?”

“Come with us if you like,” Arthur says promptly. “I’m sure they need melt in the mouth scones like yours over there.”

“Ah, flattery now, is it?” Gwen says, laughing. “I’m suppose you’re after free drinks.”

“Perish the thought,” Merlin says. “Having said that, if you’d let us loiter round here the rest of the day, I’ll bring you back a piñata from Peru.”

“Oh, go on then,” Gwen says. “But don’t you have a flight to catch?” 

“It’s not till nine tonight. But we thought we’d spend the day here because…”

Suddenly Merlin falters, his face dropping slightly. Arthur reaches out to pat his arm, and a look passes between them.

“We’re waiting on some news,” Arthur says quietly. “And we were going stir crazy in the flat, so…”

“Very sensible,” Gwen says quickly, not wanting either of them to feel awkward. “I’ve got a blackberry tart that could prove quite distracting?”

They order two slices, and two cups of coffee too. Gwen smiles as she hears them bicker over the amount of sugar Merlin is tipping into his. She likes her tea sickly sweet and her girlfriend despairs of her sometimes.

Thinking of her girlfriend puts a smile on her face all over again, and she slips into the back to make more scones. A song comes on the radio that she vaguely recognises and she starts to sing along as she works.

_Oh anyway, it's looking like a beautiful day._

Then the news comes on after and she nearly turns it off, not wanting to be brought down by all the ills of the world. But the first item is that the Magical Protection Act has been passed. Almost a whole year since the microchipping bill went through.

Suddenly Gwen feels marvellously happy. Some days brought nothing but bad news, and then there were days like this when humanity miraculously came together to get it right somehow. And tonight she would go home and kiss her girlfriend and then maybe in a few months time, once she’d gathered together all her courage, she’d go down to that ring shop and…

Alone in the kitchen, Gwen lets out a little laugh of delight.

When she brings Arthur and Merlin their second round of coffee, she can’t help but share the good news.

“I just heard on the radio, they passed the Magical Protection Act! Isn’t it great?”

The two men stare at her dumbfounded for a moment, and Gwen wavers slightly. What if she’s read them all wrong and they’re some awful bigots?

But then Merlin begins to smile. It starts out slow, and then spreads across his face until it’s like he’s lit up from within.

“Really?” He asks, and his voice is nakedly hopeful. “It passed?” 

“Yeah, Annis just made a statement and everything,” she says, sensing that Merlin wants as much reassurance as he can get.

“Wow,” he says weakly, and sits back on his chair. 

Arthur nods at her, looking slightly fragile himself.

“Thank you for… that was the news. That we were waiting for. That was…”

She wants to stay and hear more, find out why they’re so invested, but then the door opens and another customer comes in. She goes to get more cups after serving him and when she comes back, Arthur is hugging Merlin close, and Merlin appears to be crying. They’re not looking at her, but Gwen feels intrusive for even witnessing such an intimate moment, and slips back into the kitchen. She leaves them to it for a while and when she next peeks out, Merlin is laughing as Arthur ruffles his hair.

It’s funny, her job. She might never get to talk to people for very long, but she gets to know them all the same. Sees little windows into their lives that most people never witness, sees snatches of the full picture. There’s a whole world inside Merlin and Arthur, inside all the people who come in here, and Gwen feels a strange rush of well-being for them.

On impulse she heats a quiche in the oven and brings it over to their table. The three of them sit and have lunch together, and Gwen stays with them for most of the afternoon. Hardly any customers come in, and so they chat and laugh and sing along to the radio together. She doesn’t ask why the Magical Protection Act is so important to them; she senses that some stories are too big for a single afternoon. She’s just happy that they’re happy.

When it’s time to close they hug her tightly, and promise to send postcards that she can stick up on the wall. She tells them not to stay away from London too long and they swear they won’t. Merlin says they have things to do here one day, and she believes him.

They hoist their rucksacks up on their shoulders and she holds the door open for them. They’re nearly out when Arthur turns back.

“About romance tips for your girlfriend,” he says quietly. “Tell her… tell her to make room for you in her life. And not to be afraid. And… tell her to take care of you.”

Behind him Merlin groans exaggeratedly, but Gwen can see his eyes are soft with affection.

“You are so corny,” he says fondly.

“I love you too Merlin,” Arthur says wryly.

“Yeah, yeah. Come on then, Casanova,” Merlin says. “Let’s go start our next adventure.”

They step onto the street and Gwen follows them out, Arthur’s words ringing in her head. 

Tomorrow. Tomorrow she’ll go to the ring shop. Life’s too short not to follow your heart.

She watches as Merlin and Arthur walk away, hand in hand, and she wishes them well with all her being. Then she waves and waves until they’re out of sight.

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! This fic was a real labour of love and I would be thrilled to know what you thought if you have time to leave a comment!
> 
> And of course head on over to the art page to show Mushroom all the love :)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Fanart: Almost Home](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6085062) by [mushroomtale](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mushroomtale/pseuds/mushroomtale)




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